Iron Pyramids
by CyndarDragon
Summary: The horrors of Tetsu's life led her to meet Pyramid Head, where they created a pact together; as long as she gave him friendship, he would give her protection from her torturers and allow her to roam the Nightmare Realm. But when the Cult in Silent Hill discovered this, Tetsu must put her life in his hands to survive.
1. Prologue

The rain was now pouring down in thick blankets and blurred my vision. I was now trapped now with my back against the wall of the dead end and I faced my opponents; three boys, all two grades ahead of me in school, all two feet taller than me, all about to beat the hell out of me again.

I backed up as far as I could go. They were huge compared to my small frame and I could barely make out their features through the relentless rain. I tried to be brave by standing up straight and clenching my fists, but I knew that it would do nothing. They approached me and I suddenly found myself praying for my newfound guardian…Pyramid.

My heart beat against my ribcage and my head was pounding. The moment they touched me, I screamed. They beat me with their fists over and over again and I was on my knees in the puddles, wailing out of fear and pain. I felt a fist connect with my face and the next thing I knew was that I was tasting blood in my mouth. I spit it out and it hit the face of one of the boys. Enraged, he picked me up by the back of my shirt and body-slammed my tiny frame into the ground. He stomped on my stomach and kicked me in the ribs. I had no clue how he didn't break a bone, but he continued to ruthlessly attack me. They were yelling things at me with huge smiles on their faces and I was scared. I was just so scared.

All I could think of was, "Pyramid, Pyramid, Pyramid, Pyramid."

With my eyes squeezed shut and my body curled in a defensive position, I heard a loud screeching noise of metal against a solid surface. It sounded so familiar, but I couldn't think of what it might have been. It sounded about three more times before I realized just what it was.

One of the boys screamed and when I looked up, he was suspended a good five feet off of the ground with a large, jagged, rusty blade protruding from his abdomen. Blood spurted out of the fatal wound against the wall and the red substance drained out on the ground, gallons at a time.

The other two bellowed out curses and wheeled around to see what had just happened.

There he stood, the seven-foot-tall figure. Broad shoulders, muscular body, tetrahedron-shaped helmet, and skirt made out of what was probably human skin. He was holding onto his blade, suspending the boy in the air. He jerked it a few times and the boy's body slid down the blade until it reached the handle, then Pyramid flung the blade off to the side. His tremendously strong grip on his blade allowed him to continue having it in his hand while the body flew off and slammed against the wall.

He turned to the other two, towering over all of us, looking like a god in the powerful rain that pelted down on everything. Then I realized that he wasn't just anyone's god. He was my god.

The boys screamed, yelling things like, "What the hell are you?" and "Get away from us!" as well as a wide variety of colorful curses. Pyramid simply put his blade behind himself, purposely allowing it to make a horrific scraping noise that sent chills down all of our spines. With the might of his entire body, he rose the heavy blade and thrust it downward, slicing one of the boys vertically in half. Blood and guts were strewn about the floor. I couldn't believe how clean the cut was.

The alleyway was narrow so when the last assailant standing attempted to run away, my gigantic and frightening friend caught him in the midst of his escape. He lifted him off the floor, ignoring his cries and pleas for mercy. Pyramid dropped his blade and rose his hand, grasping the clothes on the boy's chest. With one swift move, he gracefully ripped the clothes off of his body. Then he grabbed onto the boy's naked skin with a rough grip and he pulled back.

The skin snapped off in one piece, like a blanket or a pelt. Everything inside of him fell to the ground and Pyramid dropped the corpse and the hide.

I stared at him, still kneeling down on the ground. He turned his sharp-edged helmet to me and held out his hand. I found myself gripping it and he pulled me up onto my feet.

I was still trying to register what had just happened. It didn't seem real. Did he really do that? It happened so quickly. I saw it, but…it happened just so fast that maybe I didn't actually see it. Or maybe I did and I refused to think of it. There was so much blood and gore on the ground that I failed to realize that I myself was covered with blood.

Not wishing to think of it any longer, I found myself wrapping my arms around Pyramid's waist. I was so small and he was so large that his waist was the only thing that I could embrace, but he was so warm. I just couldn't let go. He obviously didn't mind that the side of my head was placed on his groin and I was probably accidentally pulling down his skirt. He just let me hug him. It was so nice to hug someone. And he hugged me back. Despite my size, he bent down and wrapped his strong arms around me and held me tightly to his body.

He may not have been speaking, but I knew that he was telling me that everything was going to be okay. He took care of the situation. More importantly, he took care of me.

His promise to protect me…I liked it.


	2. Chapter 1

**This is my second Silent Hill fanfiction :D I hope that it's at least mildly entertaining :3**

**I also need to say that I don't own Silent Hill or anything associated with it, because that all belongs to Konami :) I do own my character Tetsu and a few other things so...yeah...there, disclaimer made!**

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><p><em>Chapter One<em>

I stepped into the classroom with my books held tightly in my arms against my chest. I arrived late to class and my teacher just plainly looked at me with a visage that said, "Why are you late, you stupid girl. Sit down and shut up."

Everyone in the classroom turned my direction, all of them wearing blank faces with stares that made me feel awkard. I promptly made a beeline to my desk and set my books down. The blonde-haired boy behind me sneered and gestured at someone. I was unsure what the movement meant, but I knew that it involved me.

I felt a prick on the back of my neck ten minutes into class. I swiped at it and the annoyance ceased for a mere five seconds until I felt it again. I swat it again and I heard the boy behind me snickering. I glanced behind myself to glare at him, but his stupid smile remained on his face as if it was plastered there.

I just wanted to burn it off with acid.

At the end of class when the bell rang, I got up to quickly gather my belongings before I was bullied again. But it never worked.

The blonde-haired boy walked into me and knocked my heavy books on the ground. He said a sarcastic 'whoops' and galloped away out of the door, ugly sneer on his round face the entire time. Someone else snatched my bag from me and I immediately tried to grab it.

"Aww, what's the matter, blood-head? Too short?" He said as I attempted to get it back.

"Give it back!" I yelled. "It's mine!"

He threw it at my head and I barely caught it.

"That's such a gay bag," he commented.

I threw my bag back over my shoulders and proceeded to escape the room as fast as I could. It was like that every day, at every time, in the same manner. Even when I walked through the hallways people tossed things at me and called me names. How I hated them.

I turned to my locker and opened it. Someone bumped into me again and said, "Get outta the way, blood-bitch. Jesus Christ, she's a freaking vampire. Bitch." He slammed my locker door closed and laughed.

No one else even pretended to notice.

I opened it up again and smiled at the picture I had hanging up. It was of a golden lab, one that I wanted to adopt last month. He was a stray and no one wanted or owned him. He didn't even have a collar. I named him Lucky and I played with him, gave him food, and even sheltered him in the shed that my backyard had. I wanted him so badly.

But my dad killed him.

My heart went cold when I recognized a familiar-sounding voice. It was high pitch and bitchy. When I turned around, I saw Veronica Wilson with her gaggle of twiggy-thin twits.

"So what's up, blood-head?" she said and casually leaned against my locker. "Got any gum for me?"

I shook my head and was closing the door to my locker when her hand stopped me. I just simply looked at her as she said, "What do you have here? A doggy?" She took the picture of Lucky from my door and laughed at it. "What is this thing, a bear? He's so fat."

I said nothing as I somehow managed to snatch it back from her. I put it back in my locker in the blink of an eye. She reached for it again- probably to tear it up, since she was now angry that I dared to touch her -and I slammed the locker door on her hand.

She screamed and flinched back. Everyone averted their attention to her as she was clutching her hand.

I made a run for it to my next class. As I was running, I heard her bellow out, "She broke it! She broke my hand!"

I got to the 'safety' of my class where a supervising adult deterred the students from harassing me further.

* * *

><p>I arrived home in tears. The doors were unlocked and no one was inside. I headed for my room and slammed the door shut behind me, throwing my backpack on the ground. I tossed myself on my bed with the picture of Lucky and wept into my pillow.<p>

There's a reason why a love animals more than humans. Lucky was the only friend I ever had and he loved me for _me_, but no human loves me. What was that thing in the Ten Commandments? Love your neighbors? And wasn't this a very religious town? Yes it was, but did they love me? Not in the slightest bit. Ever since school started, it's been a game of let's-see-who-tortures-her-more for me. I still had the scrape on my knee from last week when that kid pushed me into the ground.

After a few minutes, I sat upright and stared out of the window at the trees. I wished I was a tree. It was much better than being human.

I put Lucky up on my bulletin board. I had all sorts of cheery things up there, like pictures of butterflies and birds and a piece of paper that said, "SMILE! Things could be worse."

Of course, I knew that those were lies. I really didn't think that my position could possibly get worse. Did it really matter, though? Getting beaten up in school? Receiving ridiculous stares and glares from people? I wondered why they did it. Maybe it was because my hair color was blood-red. Maybe it was because I was ten years old and small. Maybe it was because my name was Tetsu, unlike their 'American' names.

At least I had my books. I went over to my shelf and grabbed one, smiling at it. Oh how I loved books. I could get lost in my own little world and forget about all of the other crud going on in my life. With books, I could just relax and be the character…which in my case, would involve fighting through hundreds of zombies with a machine gun and riding dragons into war.

I almost fell asleep reading until I heard the front door open up. Almost immediately I smelt him; my father. He was a short, balding, ugly, round and fat man who smelt of alcohol and smoke. In fact, the entire house smelt like cigarettes, beer, and unclean clothes. It was disgusting and I hated the scent.

"Tetsu, you get dinnah goin'?" he said.

I shook my head.

He let a list of colorful swears at me and in the midst of it, I looked at the clock. Three hours had gone by and I didn't even realize it. Then he started preaching to me about responsibility.

Responsibility? How could I be responsible for him when he did _nothing _for me? He wanted me to feed him? Fine. I gave him the leftover tortellini and zucchini. As long as he was quiet, I could read my books.

I still never forgave him for murdering Lucky. He discovered that I had a dog and for some reason, he hated animals and didn't even dare consider having one of the four-legged creatures in the house. He found Lucky one day, brought him out into the back, and shot him with a rifle. Bye-bye doggy. All because he was afraid that I was going to bring the dog home.

"Tetsu, get me a beer too, while yer at it," he demanded.

I complied and brought him his beer as he sat down on the couch and turned on the television.

"Ugh, why is it so damn hot in here?" he complained and took off his sweaty shirt, throwing it to the other side of the room.

I was disgusted. He wasn't the kind of person who was just fat, no; instead, he was hairy. And his hair was long and black and was matted down on him. And while most people seem to have two or three rolls of fat, he had four. He was sweaty and gross and sat with his legs wide open while drinking in his disgusting adult pacifier (the beer) and paid his attention to what was on the screen and his plate instead of me. He was the kind of person who got food stamps but used his money to buy beer and cigarettes instead.

I went back to my room and started to read my book again. God, I love being the hero of a country.

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><p>I woke up around seven in the morning and, upon remembering that it was Saturday, changed into my day clothes. They were simple black shorts and a white t-shirt. I put on my black running shoes, combed my hair, and left the house. My father stayed in bed usually until noon. Besides, he didn't care if I left or not.<p>

With my twiggy legs, I ran down the sidewalk towards downtown Silent Hill where there was a playground that allowed me to practice my climbing skills on trees and equipment. Going early in the morning allowed me to have it all to myself before other kids came and decided to beat me up.

I smiled widely as I ran up the thick trunk of the tree to grab onto a branch. I hauled myself up onto it and jumped, catching onto another sturdy branch. I proceeded to get to my favorite branch, which was large and flat and allowed me to sit on it as if it was a bench. From up there, I could look at the beautiful masonry of the old, conjoined buildings and the apartments that were off in the distance not too far away. I liked to watch people walk back and forth on the sidewalks and loved to see the little cars motor by. Sometimes there would be a street performer and I could watch them thanks to the height of the tree, which allowed me to see beyond the four-foot tall brick walls that penned in the playground.

Despite the hell that people gave me, Silent Hill wasn't really a bad town. It was small and quaint and the shops there always had something to interest me. However, there was something weird that happened about twenty years ago. I remembered reading an article about some weird religious cult that murder some nine-year-old kid. When the police came, everybody was butchered, including the little girl. It was a grisly thing to happen but it was probably the only thing that stained the history of Silent Hill.

Other than the things that happen to me.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. The sunlight was nice and warm against my face and the light breeze was gentle.

It was lovely until I felt something hit my dangling leg. I looked to see what it was and even though it was early in the morning, a gang of boys- one of them the blonde-haired kid who enjoyed annoying me -surrounded the tree. They all started to throw rocks at me, so I moved up higher into the tree. Then I saw that they were climbing the tree as well.

This was basically how it went: one of them caught onto my ankle and pulled me down. I fought him, kicking him in the face and trying to pull myself up, but he was too strong and got me out of my favorite tree.

Now on the ground, he pushed me into the dirt and kicked me. "What's the matter, fucktard?" he said. "Can't get up, you gay, stupid fag?"

I scrambled to my feet and sprinted to the exit of the park. They were taller with much longer legs and tripped me. I got a face full of mud as I fell and found my head being pushed into the substance.

"Eat it, blood-bitch," he said.

I tried to wriggled out of his grip to get air into my lungs and I succeeded for a moment until he held me down again. I got so angry at him that I gripped onto his wrist and with my nails (or claws), I ripped off a bunch of his skin. He screamed and fell backwards into the mud. I got up and fled to the exit.

Once I was out, I ran to the right, where I knew that if I followed the road, I would be lead back to my house.

This was just my normal, ordinary, everyday life.

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><p><strong>You'll find Pyramid Head in the next chapter :D<strong>


	3. Chapter 2

**Yeah, Pyramid Head has arrived :D**

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><p><em>Chapter 2<em>

I was in class. The teacher left for five minutes. I was standing in the center of the room. Everyone was yelling, "Blood-head! Blood-head! Blood-head!" at me. They were all throwing books, pencils, scissors, and bags at me. They surrounded me and I tried to get away, but every time I tried to push my way through them, they would just throw me back in the center and I would attempt to escape again.

It went on like this until a fellow student warned us that the teacher was returning. They ceased their attack and I fled out of the room, sprinted past the teacher, ran down the hall, and went out of the school doors.

I turned left and ran as fast as I could down the road. I went past the stores, past the neighbors, past the police station, and past my house. I continued to run even when the road entered Toluca Lake Forest. The trees became more and more dense and I felt like I was running into a tunnel.

Twenty minutes passed of me just simply running down that road until I couldn't run anymore. I stopped and bent over and supported my weight by resting my hands on my knees. I realized that I had tears streaming down my sweaty face and I briskly wiped them off with the sleeve of my shirt.

When I looked up, I saw a large building overgrown by vines and covered with by foliage. It was the old and abandoned mental hospital that the state shut down about twenty years ago. A lot of people had died in there, which started the rumor that it was haunted.

If it was true, then maybe I could talk to one of the lost spirits. Maybe we could communicate with each other and share how scared and hurt we were.

Maybe I could get a friend.

I walked down the long and neglected path to the building. The white walls of the outside were cracking and had green vines growing over it. It was about three stories tall and all of the windows were broken with dangerously sharp edges.

I opened up the doors to the building and cringed at the horrendously loud screeching noise that they made due to the rusty hinges. Upon walking inside, I couldn't help but notice just what a poor condition this building was in. Debris and rubble were strewn about the ground and there were random chairs and stretchers with thick coats of dust on them laying around in messy clusters.

It was dark inside and so eerily quiet that it was almost uncomfortable, but then I remembered that I was looking for someone or something to talk to. Something to comfort me, perhaps.

I flicked on a light switch but nothing happened. I headed to the office and rummaged around the files and drawers there. I found a flashlight and tested it to see if it was working. When it flicked on, the room flooded with light and I looked around. It looked like any ordinary doctor's office except for one thing; a crooked picture in the back of the room.

I walked closer to it to get a better look. It was a full-body portrait of a muscular man holding onto a gigantic sword made of jagged iron. He also had a strange, bird-shaped helmet on his head that appeared to be fixed on his shoulders. Maybe it was more pyramid-shaped than bird shaped, but the heavy-looking thing had extremely sharp-looking edges and was black and made of iron with some sort of weird knob in the back. The front of the helmet was elongated like a bird's beak and stretched out about three feet from his chest.

It looked scary.

I walked out of the office and explored a little more. Everything was so quiet and alone that I considered leaving, but then I remembered the children attacking me. They could kill me next time.

The thought of that made my heart sink and grow cold. I glanced at a stairway and saw that it lead to a basement. I descended down the stairway into the darkness with my small flashlight as my only source of light.

I came out into a large storage room with endless amounts of strange medical supplies and boxes stacked on top of one another. I wandered around a little bit until I found another staircase. I cocked my head at it. Another basement? What building would have two basements?

Though I hesitated, I headed down the stairs. Inside of the basement's basement were weird chains hanging from the ceiling. Some of them were knotted into huge clumps and were placed on top of large cages. What would a hospital need to do with cages? And chains? They wouldn't put patients in there, would they?

As I wandered in further, I noticed that there were broken-down doors and hallways. I had no clue where they lead, so I went back to the stairway and sat down next to a cage. I stared at the iron bars for a long time and thought to myself how I was trapped in a cage, except there wasn't a key to mine and there were no caretakers. I was trapped and no one was going to rescue me. I might as well just be thrown into that cage like the lions and tigers at the zoos, or birds and butterflies in people's homes. The only difference with them is that they're allowed out of their forced barriers and are almost always shown much more love than I received.

A few minuets passed before I asked, "Is anybody there?" I waited for a while and realized that I probably wasn't going to get a response. I tucked my knees into my chest and wrapped my arms around them. I felt tears beginning to well up in my eyes again and I began to cry. I was crying because of what happens to me at school. I was crying because I technically had no mother, my father didn't care about me, the teacher's didn't listen to me, my dog was murdered…no one listened to me. I was tortured and no one listened to me.

I heard a soft scraping noise but I figured that it was nothing. Then I heard it again and it was gradually getting louder and louder. I looked up and wiped my eyes of the tears, seeing that the adjacent hallway had a faint glow of red. It started to glow brighter and brighter as the sound of metal scratching against metal got louder.

Then I could hear it clearly; a ba-dum, _screech_, ba-dum, _screech_, ba-dum, _screech_.

My heart leapt into my throat when I saw him. He looked identical to the figure in the picture that I saw earlier inside of the doctor's office, except he was seven feet tall and was covered with mud and blood and gunk. He had a large, dirty, leather skirt tightly wrapped around his extremely thin and muscular body.

He stopped in his tracks and I went completely still. He turned my direction, dragging something enormously heavy behind himself that was tremendously loud and metallic. He took a step towards me, then with the right side of his body, tugged his huge blade forward. He took another step forward dragged his blade forward, and stopped.

He was enormous. His shoulders were extremely broad and he was breathing heavily. A red light glowed from him and he appeared to be a god.

Without taking my eyes off of him, I stood up. I hesitated before I asked, "Who…w-w-who are you?"

He was completely silent until I heard a very muffled and deep voice ask, "Are you crying?"

My legs told me to run away but I stayed where I was. "I-I'm…sad."

"Why are you sad?"

"Who are you?"

He set his large blade down and opened up his arms as if to gesture to all of himself. He said, "I am whoever you want me to be."

"Well…what do you mean by that?"

"Why are you sad?" he repeated. "Why are you here?"

"I was…these kids at school were attacking me. I ran away and I came here."

"Why were they attacking you?"

"They've always done that. I've always been bullied in school…so I just…I don't know…I just ran away." My voice started to choke. "I don't know, I don't know." I took a few steps towards him and he didn't move.

"How many were there?"

"Twenty," I said. "Everyone in the school beats me up. I've talked to teachers and adults and my dad but they've done nothing." I started to sob again. "Please, I'm just so scared…please help me, please…."

"Come here," he said. "Tell me what happened. I'll see what I can do."

I didn't know what to say and I could barely make out any of my words, mostly blubbering out incoherent sentences. "I don't…I mean, I don't know…they just…please help me, _please_ _help me_…." Once I was close enough to him, I wrapped my arms around his waist. He was so tall and I was so short….

I clung onto him for a five minutes before I told him the entire story. What happened to my mother, my dog Lucky, what my father and the children at school do me, the fact that I can't seem to go anywhere without getting hurt by others.

Several minutes passed and I was silent until he said, "Tetsu, I promise you that it will soon be their turn to suffer. The weight of their crimes will determine their punishment. You must make me one promise."

I wiped the tears from my eyes and I asked, "What? Wait, how do you know my name?"

"You must promise me friendship in return and complete secrecy of this pact. Tell no one."

"What are you going to do to them?"

"I will protect you, Tetsu. You are a tortured soul. I hold my hand out to you and promise to rescue you. You make the decision on your own."

He held out his hand to me and I just looked at it. Then I slowly found myself reaching mine out to his and we gripped each other's.

The whole room shook violently and I tried to let go of his hand, but he kept his grip on mine. I tried to wriggle free, but I was trapped and my flashlight went out. I panicked when I saw his red glow illuminate the entire room. The walls suddenly had their colors change into rusted metal and the floors grew some sort of strange, sharp material on it. There was a deafening sound that vibrated the entire room.

I screamed and the huge…_thing_…lifted me off of the ground by my arm and held me tightly to his body. I could smell a strong metallic scent on him and I gagged. Everything became dark and I the last thing I remember was seeing something crawling out of the walls.

I woke up with a gasp and tried to collect what had just happened. Instead being in the basement's basement, I was upstairs in front of the entrance of the building.

I clenched my fists together and sat upright. It took a while for my vision to return to normal but when it did, I saw something lying down next to me on the ground. It was a piece of paper with something written and drawn on it. I picked it up and tried to read it, but it was too dark for me to see it.

I stood up and walked out of the hospital. In the back of my mind, I thought that I should have been panicking or running away from something, but instead I felt completely calm and normal, almost as if nothing had ever happened in the first place.

With the outside light, I could see that on the piece of paper was a stick figure with a pyramid-like helmet holding the hand of a little girl. I guessed that that person was me.

Beside it was something handwritten. It said, _Do not worry my little pariah, for where you walk, I walk beside you and when you are hurt, I will be there to mend you._

I thought about that thing back there. Just what _was_ that? Was any of that really real, or was that all just in my imagination?

I decided to leave and headed home.


	4. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

As I sat at my desk in school, I completely ignored the lecture that my teacher was giving the class. All that I could think of what that man in the hospital. Maybe it wasn't a man. I had asked him what his name was, but all he said was, "I am whoever you want me to be." For the meantime, I'll just called Pyramid, due to his funny-looking helmet.

Pyramid was clouding every thought of my mind. I picked up my pencil and started to draw him from memory. I may have only been ten years old, but I knew how to draw, and I could draw realistically. As I drew, I remembered to include every single little detail. I drew in the nuts and bolts on his helmet as well as the triangular-shaped, bumpy material that ran down both sides of the helmet and appeared to resemble eyes. I drew in the circular knob on the back of the helmet and proceeded to draw his skirt. I shaded in his abs and remembered to draw in light lines to show his well-defined ribs.

Even when the teacher stopped lecturing and the class had leisure time, I continued to draw him. I wished that I had colored pencils so that I could draw in the blood that was splattered on his body.

Another of my much-hated harassers came over to me and looked at what I was drawing. "What the hell is that?" she said in her usual bitchy voice.

I stopped and thought for a moment before I said, "His name is Pyramid."

"What the hell is he?"

An idea came to my mind before I decided to say, "He's an angel."

She gave me a weird look. "How the hell is that an angel?"

"He is in his own unique way. He likes to tie people up in chains and lock them in a cage before strapping them down onto an iron bed and hanging them upside-down from a ceiling for a day. After that, he kills them with his sword. See?" I pointed to the large blade that he was lugging around.

My plan worked and she gave me a 'she's crazy' look and walked away. She joined the rest of the crowd and waited for the bell to ring.

I smiled. She didn't even insult me in the slightest bit. I was glad that I could freak her out. As long as she would leave me alone, I could obviously deal with that.

The bell rang and I made my way to my locker. I took a piece of tape and hung up my picture of Pyramid inside of the door. I was about to close it until something stopped me, and it wasn't another person. I found myself unable to look away from my drawing. Without thinking, my hand reached up to it and I folded it so that it would fit inside of my pocket. I don't know why I had the sudden urge to carry it around with me, but I obeyed what my gut said and decided to take it. Then I forgot about it once I saw a twiggy blonde-haired girl come striding over to me.

Veronica, with her hand uninjured from the previous door-slamming, approached me with a scowl on her face. She slammed me into my locker and snatched my bag from my hands. I instinctively reached for it, but then stopped when she opened it while letting out a list of colorful swears.

She grabbed one of my books and threw it at me, saying, "What the hell is this crap?"

"A textbook," I replied as I caught it.

She proceeded to take out all of my belongings and threw everything on the ground, pushing me into my locker again. "Guess what, blood-head? I told my boyfriend about what you did to me yesterday. You'll be sorry that you ever did that."

As she walked away, I could feel my heart leap into my throat. I really did not like the sound of that.

All what I did was think of Pyramid. I didn't even take the bus home. I decided to walk home as the sky became thick with dense clouds threatening to rain. The weather wasn't even on my mind as I practically aimlessly walked away from the school.

Only when it began to rain did I realize that I should have taken the bus. There was also one other reason…

I became aware that someone was following me when I recognized three silhouettes against the rain not too far away. My first thought was that it was nothing, but when I turned around again to see if they were there five minutes later, I was being still followed. I felt my gut begin to twist into knots once it dawned on me that I was mostly likely in some serious danger. This wasn't good.

I began to walk faster and took out my picture of Pyramid. I soaked the paper by holding it out in the rain, but if my freak-out method could work on these guys, then maybe I could possibly save myself from harm.

I was quick to realize that that wouldn't have prevailed the moment they started running after me.

After dropping my picture, I slid off my backpack (which was weighing me down) and fled. My heart began to race and the sudden adrenaline rush made me sprint as fast as a greyhound.

I made a turn into an alleyway to what I thought was a shortcut to the main road, where I could then be in the public and safe from my assailants. Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn and I wound up being at a dead end.

The rain was now pouring down in thick blankets and blurred my vision. I was now trapped now with my back against the wall of the dead end and I faced my opponents; three boys, all two grades ahead of me in school, all two feet taller than me, all about to beat the hell out of me again.

I backed up as far as I could go. They were huge compared to my small frame and I could barely make out their features through the relentless rain. I tried to be brave by standing up straight and clenching my fists, but I knew that it would do nothing. They approached me and I suddenly found myself praying for my newfound guardian…Pyramid.

My heart beat against my ribcage and my head was pounding. The moment they touched me, I screamed. They beat me with their fists over and over again and I was on my knees in the puddles, wailing out of fear and pain. I felt a fist connect with my face and the next thing I knew was that I was tasting blood in my mouth. I spit it out and it hit the face of one of the boys. Enraged, he picked me up by the back of my shirt and body-slammed my tiny frame into the ground. He stomped on my stomach and kicked me in the ribs. I had no clue how he didn't break a bone, but he continued to ruthlessly attack me. They were yelling things at me with huge smiles on their faces and I was scared. I was just so scared.

All I could think of was, "Pyramid, Pyramid, Pyramid, Pyramid."

With my eyes squeezed shut and my body curled in a defensive position, I heard a loud screeching noise of metal against a solid surface. It sounded so familiar, but I couldn't think of what it might have been. It sounded about three more times before I realized just what it was.

One of the boys screamed and when I looked up, he was suspended a good five feet off of the ground with a large, jagged, rusty blade protruding from his abdomen. Blood spurted out of the fatal wound against the wall and the red substance drained out on the ground, gallons at a time.

The other two bellowed out curses and wheeled around to see what had just happened.

There he stood, the seven-foot-tall figure. Broad shoulders, muscular body, strange-shaped helmet, and skirt made out of what was probably human skin. He was holding onto his blade, suspending the boy in the air. He jerked it a few times and the boy's body slid down the blade until it reached the handle, then Pyramid flung the blade off to the side. His tremendously strong grip on his blade allowed him to continue having it in his hand while the body flew off and slammed against the wall.

He turned to the other two, towering over all of us, looking like a god in the powerful rain that pelted down on everything. Then I realized that he wasn't just anyone's god. He was my god.

The boys screamed, yelling things like, "What the hell are you?" and "Get away from us!" as well as a wide variety of colorful curses. Pyramid simply put his blade behind himself, purposely allowing it to make a horrific scraping noise that sent chills down all of our spines. With the might of his entire body, he rose the heavy blade and thrust it downward, slicing one of the boys vertically in half. Blood and guts were strewn about the floor. I couldn't believe how clean the cut was.

The alleyway was narrow so when the last assailant standing attempted to run away, my gigantic and frightening friend caught him in the midst of his escape. He lifted him off the floor, ignoring his cries and pleas for mercy. Pyramid dropped his blade and rose his hand, grasping the clothes on the boy's chest. With one swift move, he gracefully ripped the clothes off of his body. Then he grabbed onto the boy's naked skin with a rough grip and he pulled back.

The skin snapped off in one piece, like a blanket or a pelt. Everything inside of him fell to the ground and Pyramid dropped the corpse and the hide.

I stared at him, still kneeling down on the ground. He turned his sharp-edged helmet to me and held out his hand. I found myself gripping it and he pulled me up onto my feet.

I was still trying to register what had just happened. It didn't seem real. Did he really do that? It happened so quickly. I saw it, but…it happened just so fast that maybe I didn't actually see it. Or maybe I did and I refused to think of it. There was so much blood and gore on the ground that I failed to realize that I myself was covered with blood.

Not wishing to think of it any longer, I found myself wrapping my arms around Pyramid's waist. I was so small and he was so large that his waist was the only thing that I could embrace, but he was so warm. I just couldn't let go. He obviously didn't mind that the side of my head was placed on his groin and I was probably accidentally pulling down his skirt. He just let me hug him. It was so nice to hug someone. And he hugged me back. Despite my size, he bent down and wrapped his strong arms around me and held me tightly to his body.

He may not have been speaking, but I knew that he was telling me that everything was going to be okay. He took care of the situation. More importantly, he took care of me.

His promise to protect me…I liked it.

* * *

><p><strong>Daww, see? Pyramid has a heart in him somewhere, ripping off the skin of his enemy to save a little girl XD<strong>


	5. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

I sat on the couch, staring blankly at the television screen with my father sitting on the other end of the room. The newscaster was telling about the mysterious murder of three boys. One was sliced vertically in half, another was stabbed through the abdomen, and another was skinned to a point of no recognition.

My fanatically religious father just shook his head at the screen. "I don't know how shit like that's even possible," he commented. "What could have possibly done that? God almighty."

I wanted to smile but at the same time I didn't. Three living human beings had just been killed, and they weren't coming back. At the same time, I was relieved because they're not going to ever return and hurt me or give me troubles again. Pyramid may have protected me, but something about it still seemed…strange. My feelings were so mixed up with the situation that I didn't know what my emotion should have been.

The television screen suddenly changed faces to show a distraught mother saying, "Please, please, anyone out there who knows who is responsible for this, please contact us. For the person who did do this, please turn yourself in, because my son is now dead, and that's something that I can't replace." She started to sob. It was a typical message that any parent would send out in a search for justice and personal peace, but seeing her face caused a pang at my heart. She obviously had not known of what her son had been doing to me, and she never would. To her and the other parents, this was just a horrible murder that must be justified.

But they can't justify something like Pyramid, especially when he needs no justification.

I thought of the last of Pyramid's victims. He had pulled off that boy's skin in one long, gory, human pelt. How had he done that? Flesh just doesn't tear off like that.

As the news continued to rant on about the grotesque murders, I was silently thanking Pyramid in my mind. I thought to myself, _Thank you Pyramid, thank you. I can't thank you enough. I think I'll go pay you a visit._

I stood up and said to my dad, "I'm going to go outside."

"Oh no yer not," he said. "You gotta make dinner."

I glanced at the clock. It was five thirty. I scowled as I walked into the kitchen. I was angry because he was delaying me from visiting my guardian…the one who was so strong and so scary, but he was also so unrealistically warm and gentle.

As I turned the stove on and rummaged around the pantry for a box of pasta, I thought about when I hugged him. He was so gentle and comforting and the warmth…maybe the cold rain made him seem warmer than usual, but I just could not get over the sensation. That warmth that flushed away my feelings of fear…I wanted to feel it again. I would go to that scary hospital again just to hug him and feel that wonderful warmth that his body gave off.

It was seven o'clock and the sun was setting. I stepped into the old hospital building and skipped over to the stairwell, where I proceeded to go down to the basement's basement. The same weird cages and chains were all in their original positions and hadn't been moved at all.

I maneuvered around the cages and metal into an adjacent hallway. Looking down both directions that it split, I cupped my hands over my mouth and I yelled out, "Pyramid!" I heard my voice echo all over the building and then it quieted down. I started to walk down the hallway and I called out his name again. "Pyramid! Are you here? It's me, Tetsu!"

I waited for several minutes and I got no response. I thought to myself that maybe he wasn't here and maybe he left for a little while and will be back soon. This gave me some time to explore the subbasement.

I walked over to a closed door made of metal and turned the knob, but it didn't open. I turned it with more force and pushed myself up against it to open it, but it didn't budge. Then I remembered that I was only eighty pounds and I wasn't strong in the first place.

I frowned and tried to open three more doors, but they were all locked. Then I heard a loud 'thump' followed by a clang of metal that startled me. It sounded like it came from a room not too far away and I walked over to it. This door actually opened for me and I shone my flashlight over the room. There were eight-foot tall cages hanging from a high ceiling with chains and random scrap metal strewn about the floor. I heard a screech of metal and I jumped in surprise.

When I shone my flashlight in the noise's direction, I saw Pyramid apparently struggling with something. "That you, Pyramid?" I asked as I cautiously went closer.

Once I was close enough, I saw that he had his giant blade laying on the ground and he was tugging on his skirt. It looked like it had gotten caught on a piece of metal.

"What are you get stuck on?" I asked with a smile on my face as I crawled over the heap of metal in front of me. I approached him and he only struggled to free himself further. "Quit moving," I said. "Lemme help you."

He stilled and turned his head- still wearing that weird helmet -towards me. I bent down to where his skirt had been snagged and I got him free of the piece of metal. I eyed his sword and tried to pick it up to give it to him, but I couldn't even lift it an inch. I attempted to raise it by the handle again but only to no avail.

Pyramid bent down and picked it up without ease.

With jealously, I did a fake-scowl at him and immediately smiled afterwards. "Showoff," I said. When he stood up straight with his blade in hand, I had to look straight up at him. He was such a giant and towered so far above me that I actually felt a little intimidated.

I decided to say to him, "I wanted to thank you for saving me back there in the alleyway yesterday. I would've come to thank you earlier, but I kind of couldn't…you know, with my dad holding me back against my will because he wanted me to cook a feast for him and all…."

He made a low grunt and took in a deep breath before saying, "I wish to show you something, Tetsu."

I cocked my head at him and asked, "What?"

"Take my hand and you shall see." He proffered out his hand to me.

I didn't hesitate to take it and he gripped it tightly. It hurt slightly, but I trusted him.

The entire room was flooded with by a red glow and everything shook violently again, almost as if there was an earthquake. The metal cages clanged loudly against each other and the dangling chains rattled noisily.

My happy mood had suddenly changed to one of fear, but instead of trying to get myself free of Pyramid, I moved closer to him and pressed myself up against his body. The red light got brighter and I saw blood beginning to drain from the ceiling and flow down the walls. I closed my eyes and buried my face in Pyramid's skirt while sirens began to ring deafeningly loud in my ears. They sounded like emergency sirens that towns in Kansas or Oklahoma would have to warn people of tornadoes.

The shaking finally stopped and everything became peacefully quiet. I opened my eyes and saw that the room was made visible by a light being produced from a fluorescent bulb on the ceiling. I could see that all of the scrap metal was gone and everything else in the room was covered with by blood and rust. A strange red liquid dripped from the ceiling and pooled in certain low-lying areas of the metallic ground.

"This is my world," Pyramid said and let go of me. "You are safe here."

I glanced around. Weird, thick, iron pipes had appeared out of nowhere from the corners of the room and ran up the walls to the ceiling. The hanging cages were still suspended and motionless and had blood running down their bars. There wasn't anything about this place that looked safe.

"You can't stay here forever, Tetsu," said Pyramid. "Time outside of this world has stopped. No one from your world knows that you are here, and time for them will not pass while you are here. But after twelve hours, you must leave."

"Why?" I asked.

"Time will start to move again and others from your world may be dragged in here. Those of whom you have strong emotions towards- hatred, jealously, anger -would be forced in first."

"Why?"

"It is just how things are, Tetsu."

"Well…then how do I get out?"

"I will show you, but first, allow me to get you familiar with this place," he said. His blade made a horrific 'screech' as he turned around.

I followed him out of the door and I immediately realized that everything had changed. We were on a balcony overlooking a very dark scene. It was literally, completely, utterly black with no end, but I could see the faint outlines of some strange, red, and most likely hot, machines far in the back that looked similar to a generator. I could also see a bunch of pipes going off endlessly into the abysmal space beyond the balcony.

I followed Pyramid across the balcony and over a metal bridge that was linked to another room. Everything had suddenly become hot when we entered the new room which was filled with five cages hanging from the ceiling by chains. A gigantic pipe surrounded by smaller pipes was in the center of the room, stretching from the floor all the way up to the two-story ceiling. One of them was broken and was making a loud hissing noise. I could see white steam escaping the pipe filled with high pressure and I immediately thought that I would hate to have that steam hit me.

"What is all this?" I asked. "Pyramid? Where are we?"

"My world," he replied. "You will have two worlds now, Tetsu; yours, where you are tormented, and this, where you are protected from harm."

I looked around again. I was scared. Nothing here looked as if it'd be friendly to me, but then I remembered that Pyramid was nice to me and he looked scary. I wasn't afraid of him, so maybe I shouldn't be scared of this place. It may have been hot but perhaps I could learn to appreciate that, especially since I live in the north where the snow can be brutal in the winter.

A loud, hissing scream pervaded throughout the room and I jumped, instinctively grabbing onto Pyramid's hand. I didn't like it here.

I clung onto Pyramid and walked closely to him. He gently held onto my hand and reassured me that everything was alright. I wasn't going to get hurt. I was safe.

I began to get fascinated with all of the machinery that we passed by. Huge gears were moving smaller gears and chains up against the walls, blocked out of reach by large bars. I wondered what they were used for. I also wondered why there were so many cages hanging from the ceiling.

I heard a loud bark and I turned in its direction. I saw a huge- and I mean _gigantic_ -three-hundred pound, black-furred dog running towards us. His head was massive and his muscular, stocky body had long legs that took long strides. It had a spiked collar around its neck and ankles and had enormous, curved claws on the paws. It had huge teeth jutting out of its mouth and spikes that ran down the spine and long tail.

I squeaked out of fear and did the only thing that I could think of to take shelter from the charging animal; I dove underneath Pyramid's skirt and grabbed onto his leg.

Pyramid stumbled and grasped onto the iron railing next to him. I saw him bend down and grab onto the bottom of his skirt to lift it up and see what it was that I was doing, but when he did so, I saw the face of the gigantic dog. I panicked again and pulled down the leather. I realized that I had almost pulled off his skirt when he had to grab onto it with both hands to prevent it from falling down. He tried to pull it up but my grip on his only article of clothing was tight and I wasn't going to let go as long as that dog was there. If I was responsible for pulling down his skirt, then I'd be fine with that, because I felt as if he should have been shooing that dog away.

The snout of the dog came up under the skirt and I clung to Pyramid so tightly that I was probably cutting off the circulation to his leg. Then the dog licked me and I relaxed, letting go of Pyramid's clothes.

Pyramid readjusted his skirt to its original position and balled up the leather so that I could fully see the dog.

I thought that the dog was going to attack me, but instead, he laid down and started licking me, wagging his long, whip-like tail. I found a smile forming on my face as I stroked the dog on the head. He wasn't mean at all; in fact, he was just a friendly dog who probably only wanted to say hi to us.

Pyramid didn't have to try very hard to pry me off of his leg because I complied right away without even thinking of it. All of my interest was now focused on the dog.

"He's cute," I said and rubbed him behind the ear. He leaned into the feeling and panted with his long, pink tongue hanging out of his mouth. "What's his name?" I asked, but Pyramid was only silent as he grabbed onto his blade. I looked over at Pyramid and asked, "Can he come with us?"

Pyramid nodded his head.

My smile broadened and I stood up. We continued our little 'journey' through this hellish dimension. All of my fears were wiped away by the appearance of this lovable dog. If Pyramid and this dog were being kind to me, then everything else here was probably going to be like that too. After all, it's what Pyramid said; I was safe.

The dog barked once at me and bounded forward a few steps with his tail held up high in the air. He turned around and acted as if he wanted to play. His cuteness despite his grizzly appearance made me laugh and smile and before I knew it, we were chasing each other in circles. I was actually having fun for once.

We stayed around Pyramid and followed him to wherever he was leading us, but the entire time, the dog and I played. Then we reached a metal staircase with iron railings that descended down into the endless blackness. The smile left my face and I hesitated going down it, but Pyramid gestured for me to descend. When the dog- I decided to name him Spike -went down the staircase, I decided to follow.

It was completely quiet. The only sound other than our footsteps was the clink-clank-clink of Pyramid's sword falling down each step. I wondered why he kept lugging that thing around with him all the time. Did he really have to use it against anything? There was nothing here that seemed to have shown any threat to him.

The staircase seemed to have gone on forever. It took us ten minutes to get to the bottom, which lead to a door that I couldn't open up. I tried over and over again to push it open, but it was stubborn and refused to move. Then Pyramid came up behind me and opened it up with ease.

The inside of the room made me uneasy. In fact, I wanted to leave right away. The floors were made of rotting wood and the ceiling had some sort of clear liquid dripping from it. There were things in the walls that faintly looked like faces and there were bags full of some sort of unknown things bulging inside of it, hanging inside of cages by hooks. I tugged on Pyramid's skirt to get his attention and asked, "Pyramid, what's in those bags? Why are we in here?"

"I will show you how to return to your world," he said and gestured to a small platform. "Step up here and face the wall."

I felt a nervousness settle in my stomach, but I did what was asked of me. I stepped up and turned towards the wall. It made me a little queasy.

Pyramid took my hand and put my palm up against the wall. "Lean forward and think of where you want to go," he said.

"But…I don't know where I wanna go."

"Your bedroom. Think of your bedroom."

I remembered my bedroom and I leaned forward. Nothing happened.

"Think hard," he said. "Push yourself forward, as if you're going to walk through it. Take in a deep breath and close your eyes. Don't stop thinking about your bedroom."

I wanted to ask why, but before I could, I felt myself being pulled into the wall. My eyes shot open and I tried to flinch back from it, but I was being sucked in. I screamed and looked at Pyramid again but something gave me a push forward and everything went black.

I tried to fight my way through whatever I was in, but I felt like I was swimming through a thick, black gunk. I tried to take in a breath but I got a mouthful of the dense liquid instead. I was stuck (and felt like I was drowning) and I couldn't go anywhere, until my right arm was suddenly freed and it could move around easily as if it was in air again. I grabbed onto something solid and pushed myself forward. Next my left arm was freed, and then my head, which allowed me to take in a full breath. I coughed and gagged out whatever it was that was in my lungs and my mouth and I slid through something, falling arms-first onto the floor, catching myself.

After spitting a few times, I opened my eyes and saw that I was in my room. The black gook on the ground had disintegrated into the air and I was quick to figure out what had happened.

I had just walked _through_ a wall and came out of a completely different one. I was inside of my bedroom, it was still seven o'clock at night, and I was alone again.

I was shaking tremendously but I managed to get on my knees. I was shaking not because I was scared, but because I was weakened, almost as if all of my muscles had suddenly become fatigued after seven hours of a straight workout. There was a disgusting taste in my mouth and I felt like puking. I stood up and hurried to the bathroom, only to find myself hurling my guts up in the toilet a few second later.

My father, whom had no concern for me whatsoever, did nothing as I retched for a couple minutes. After that I got a monstrous headache and I shakily stumbled my way back to my bed, where I collapsed on the mattress and passed out.

* * *

><p><strong>Didn't know Pyramid Head was so vocal, huh? XD<strong>


	6. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

Everyone in the classroom was silent. No one spoke a word after the principal announced over the intercom that three of our fellow students had been murdered. One of the reasons why it was so significant was because two of them were in our class.

Our class decided not to do any work for the rest of the hour and I started to doodle Pyramid again. I felt a pang of sadness in my chest, but then I remembered that they were going to beat me up. They've been beating me up for the past two years, so they had it coming to them. It was their fault that they were butchered. Pyramid protected me, and he had to because that was part of our pact.

I would give him undying friendship for as long as I existed.

A student came over to me and looked at my drawing of Pyramid. I was drawing him dragging a naked body with one hand and he was stumbling forward in all of his bloody glory. I intended to make the body one of the boys who had attacked me, but I figured that if anybody saw it, I'd probably get in some real trouble. Instead, the made the body unrecognizable. Pyramid was supposed to be dragging him through hell, so to emphasize any hellishness in it, I drew in Spike running behind Pyramid with his eyes fixed on the corpse as if he wanted to eat it.

"What the hell is that?" he asked.

I looked up at the blonde-haired boy and replied, "A character from a book that I want to write."

"You? Writing a book?" he said in disbelief.

Before he could say any more, I said, "He supposed to be salvation personified. He's actually an angel, except he kills the bad people by torturing them first. He even stuck one of them up on a spit and roasted him over a fire until all of the muscles flaked off."

I had to us all of my willpower to not laugh after seeing the expression that he gave me. He muttered a, "She's a fucking crazy bitch." and grabbed my paper. I protested, but he pushed me back and held it up to examine it. "What the fuck?" he said, then ripped the paper in half.

I felt my heart fall down to my feet and I was quick to seize the paper back out of his hands. I looked at my torn-up masterpiece and he laughed at me, shoving me aside so that he could walk by.

I felt enraged and I screamed at him (which got the entire attention of class), "How dare you! You're next! The same person who made a skin pelt out of Robbie will do the same to you!"

He looked back at me with a look of slight shock and my teacher nellowed, "Tetsu!" I stayed in my place with my feet plastered to the floor as she marched up to me. She grabbed me roughly by my shoulders and shook me, screaming loudly, "Don't you _ever_ say something like that ever again! Do you hear me? I said, DO YOU HEAR ME?"

"Yes ma'am!" I replied, and she let go of me, satisfied with the fear coursing through my entire body. I was scared stiff.

For the next few minutes, the class mumbled about the incident and I took out another piece of paper. I started to write down names. The first was the blonde-haired boy, Joey Robinson. The next was my teacher, Mrs. Thacker, and then Veronica Wilson. I made a list of seven names, in order from whom I wanted Pyramid to take care of for me if they crossed the line. I didn't actually _want_ them to die; I just wanted them to be scared so that they'd leave me alone.

Then again, if everyone around the town started to get scared and started to see the same monster, then things would get suspicious, and I might be on the receiving end of their wishes to punish something. Regardless, I kept the list with me and I would later tell Pyramid to keep a watchful eye on these people. Since he had immediately defended me back in the alley, I had a feeling that he could see me even when he's not with me. If that was true, then he could probably see other people that he's not with, too. If a fellow student was planning something against me- such as tossing me over a bridge or something -he could warn me, or could take care of the future assailants before they did anything bad.

That was our deal, right? I get protection if I give him friendship. Besides, since Joey just tore up my beautiful picture of Pyramid, I could imagine that Pyramid wouldn't be very happy about that. I was also thinking that Pyramid would understand me if I told him not to kill the names of the people that I wrote; just scare them instead. That would be fine, right?

Then a thought came to my head. Pyramid was suppose to be protecting ME, therefore, wouldn't that make a list unnecessary? But everybody hurt me so much….

I didn't know Pyramid well enough yet to know something like that, but for the meantime, I decided to keep the list until I could figure out if it was necessary or not.


	7. Chapter 6

It was eight at night and I was standing in my bedroom, looking at the only bare wall of the four-cornered room. I put my hand up to it, pressed forward, and thought of the hellish dimension Pyramid lived in. I put more and more of my weight against the wall, but nothing happened. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath before I pushed myself forward again.

This time, I felt a warm, gooey liquid flow over my arm and travel up to my shoulder. I held my breath as I took my first step into the wall, and after a few seconds, I found myself- still holding my breath -in a black fluid. I kept myself calm and remembered to think of Pyramid's world. I shot both of my arms forward and grasped onto whatever my hands got a hold of.

Whatever I had grabbed onto, it had jerked backwards, which helped to pull me out. I took in a gulp of fresh air the moment I could, pulled one leg out, and planted the sole of my foot against the wall. I pushed forward with it and I flung out of the wall. I let go of whatever I was hanging onto and fell onto the ground.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a ground made of metal and a dirty, light-brownish colored skirt. I collected myself and sat up on my knees, rubbing my eyes. Then it dawned on me that I had grabbed onto Pyramid's helmet by accident and I was pulled out.

I looked up at him and his sheer height made me rather frightened for a mere moment, but the feeling left me within a second. I stood up and smiled, remembering that he wouldn't hurt me. I said to him, "Sorry…I didn't scare you, did I?"

He shook his helmet from left to right.

"I…um…I didn't mean to grab onto you…" I said and sheepishly clasped my hands together. It was like a comfort-gesture that I did to make myself feel less awkward. "Anyway, I just wanted to be with you. Maybe we could walk around or…something."

He shook his helmet again and I was confused until he said to me, "I have something else to show you. Come with me." Without his large weapon to slow him down, he easily walked by me and I followed him.

He seemed different without his gigantic sword. There was no sound of scraping metal and his body wasn't straining itself to carry the thing around. Maybe he finally got tired of it all the time?

As we walked, I tried to keep a lookout for Spike. He wasn't anywhere to be seen, but in the shadows of all of the weird machinery and pipes, I could see movement from faint figures. I couldn't distinguish what they were.

Pyramid brought me to a wooden door- which was a bit of a strange change from all of the metal -and opened it up. He gestured for me to go inside and I did so, but I was only more confused.

The walls of the room were made with woodened paneling that had streaks of red light coming out from the cracks, almost as if there was magma behind it. The wooden floor had a purple, circular carpet in the center and there was a bed in the corner of the room with purple blankets. The posts of the bed stretched up high enough and held drapes that could be opened or closed. On the opposite end of the room, there was a bookcase filled books, a few boxes, and- out of all things -a couple dolls. There was also a wardrobe with a lamp on top of it and a couple accents.

I looked at Pyramid and he walked to the other end of the room where the wardrobe was. He opened it up and took out a stuffed animal of a dog. It was roughly about the size of my chest and looked really fuzzy.

He walked over to me and kneeled down to my height, proffering the stuffed animal. I took hold of it and just looked at the beady eyes it had. What was I suppose to do with it? In my confusion, I smiled and asked, "Is this for me?"

He nodded his head.

My smile broadened and I hugged the stuffed animal. It was soft and the artificial fur felt nice against my face. The next thing I did was wrap my arms around Pyramid and gave him a tight hug. He had just given me a gift! I've never, in my entire life, ever been given a gift. My father never gave me one, my mother was obviously never around to give me anything, teachers never said happy birthday, and the other students obviously gave me nothing that brought joy. I've never had a birthday, or a Christmas, or an Easter, or any other holidays that people give gifts to each other on. And now here I was, hugging my first, best, and only friend I've ever had (who wasn't a dog), who gave me a gift.

It was more special than anything that anyone could have ever imagined.

Then I looked around this room and I realized that this was probably for me, too. I couldn't be sure, so I asked, "Is this…whole room for me?"

Pyramid nodded his head again.

I let go of him and I felt overjoyed. I didn't know what to think; he had just given me an entire _room_. A full bedroom, complete with a bed, a wardrobe, and things that just make a bedroom…well, a bedroom.

I just couldn't explain my joy. Ten years of my life had gone by and I've never felt this happy before…or excited. I ran over to the bed and jumped on it. I checked out the fluffy pillow and fiddled with the drapes, opening and closing them to see if I could see through them. They were translucent enough for me to make out Pyramid's figure, but that was about it.

Pyramid walked over to me and sat down on the bed. I wrapped my arms around him again, thanking him over and over again. For the first time in my life, tears of joy and not sadness came to my eyes and spilled down my cheeks like overflowing wells. I wiped them away hastily and let go of Pyramid. I hugged my stuffed animal- I decided to name him Lucky -and I fell backwards on the bed. I stared at the ceiling made of metal and then closed my eyes, savoring this sweet and alien feeling known as joy.

It was so foreign to me, but I loved it. I had known Pyramid for only three or four days and he gave me a room, a stuffed animal, a world…but more importantly, companionship.

I think I'll be sticking around Pyramid for a while longer.


	8. Chapter 7

I laid in my bed back in the real world. I was able to bring Lucky back with me so I was hugging him tightly to my chest while I stared up at the ceiling that I had been staring up at ever since I was born.

My room was rather bland. The ceiling was grey, the walls were a light purplish-gray, and the floor was…well…a darker grey with a tinge of brown. It's always been that way, ever since this house was built. I had a desk in the corner and a bed off on one wall. Opposite that was a closet with simple clothes in it, but I was missing a shirt thanks to the bullies who pulled me out of that tree and sent me falling down into the mud.

That reminded me of the list that I had. I walked over to my backpack and pulled it out, reading the names.

_Joey Robinson_

_Veronica Wilson_

_Mrs. Thacker_

_James Whittington_

_Lydia Townshend_

_Robert 'Piglet' Murray_

_Henry Chang_

I looked at the names again and a sinking feeling started to weigh down my chest. I crumpled up the paper and was about to throw it into the trash near my desk, but then I hesitated. Instead, I unwrinkled it and wrote down their ages next to their names. I scribbled a note on the bottom saying, _Pyramid, please be wary of these seven for the moment until I know otherwise._

I put the piece of paper underneath my mattress and walked out into the kitchen, where I opened up the refrigerator. It was now eight thirty at night.

There was nothing inside that enticed me and I sighed. When I stood up, I saw my father just coming out of the living room. He was wearing only underwear. It was disgusting.

"What'er ya gettin'?" he asked.

"Um…food?" I replied in an unsure voice.

"Nah, go to bed!" he bellowed. "Kitchen's closed afta seven. Don't ya know that? You stupid fuck-punked brat, get outta my sight and go at bed!"

Without a second thought, I ran back to my room and closed the door.

I wrote down my father's name on the list. How could I have forgotten about his? But then again, if something killed my father, then I'd be all alone and I would have to go to an orphanage.

I wanted to slap myself in the face. I was all alone in this world, and I wouldn't be going to an orphanage (which would be much better than this place). Instead, I'd be going to my mother's house, and I knew that she shouldn't attain custody of me because of her drinking and drug problems. I didn't want to get involved in any of that. She might even still be in jail, but I didn't care. She (and my father) could rot for all I care.

I grabbed a pencil and paper and I sat down at my desk. I started to draw Pyramid. This time he was standing tall with his muscular and thin body, appearing to be a deity in flesh-form. His skirt was bloodied and wrapped tightly around his legs with his heavy sword in one hand and a pelt of human skin in the other. Thanks to his easy-to-draw but freaky helmet, I didn't need to draw a face. Then I began to reflect on him.

His face was covered with a sharp-cornered helmet in the shape of a triangle (or a pyramid, depending on the angle). Because he didn't have a face, I could imagine him looking like anything. He could be bald with a square jaw or he could have an angular face with black hair. Either way, since I didn't know what his face looked like, he was a mystery. He looked like whatever I wanted him to. Also, since he was just so massive and godly, it was almost as if he manifested a symbol of power. His sword seemed to be burden because it's so heavy and he has difficulty tugging it around with him. But what would he have to burden him? Me? No, I wasn't a burden.

His skirt…my gut said that it was made of human skin. Pyramid punished my assailants, so since he punishes those who do 'sinning,' his skirt must mean 'sin.' Their sin was in the form of their skin, which was to be worn by their punisher.

That seemed to make sense to me, but there didn't appear to be a clear connection to it all. Maybe if I thought about it a little more, I could figure a few things out. Then I reminded myself that I could be completely wrong.

* * *

><p>Two weeks had passed since the murders. Things had gone back to normal, with my harassers realizing that just because three goons got skinned and butchered didn't mean that they couldn't make my life a hell.<p>

I was at my locker to retrieve a book when Veronica came up from behind me and knocked it out of my hand. Typical, no? Such a high-and-mighty gesture.

"Looks like you dropped something," she said and bent down to pick it up. She opened up the cover and said aloud (very loudly), "Hey look! Porno crap-tastic magazine! Hey, there's a picture here of a naked woman…lesbian! Blood-head is a lesbian!"

I tried to grab my English textbook back from her but she was tall and held it out of my reach.

"Lesbo, lesbo!" she chanted, and then everyone started to laugh and joined in. Suddenly the entire hall was yelling, "Lesbo, lesbo! Blood-head's a lesbo!"

I closed the door to my locker and ran away. I tried to push through the crowd that now surrounded me, but they were all so tall and were tightly-packed together and threw me right back in at the center. My heart was pounding with fear as smiling faces making loud noises with a pair of identical arms moved all around me. I was full of complete panic again.

I got up, this time screaming my lungs out in an attempt to get their attention to stop for a mere second that might allow me to pass by. I charged forward and managed to get by, then I sprinted to the bathroom where I proceeded to hide inside of a stall and locked the door.

I stood up on the toilet seat to prevent any potential followers from seeing my feet and I stood there for several minutes, still as a statue. I realized that no one was after me anymore and I was alone in this bathroom.

I let out a sigh and I realized the tears flowing down my face. I sat down and sobbed. I choked out, "Pyramid, did you see that? Tell me that you saw that…Veronica caused it all, she did it all….She enjoys doing that…why? What did I ever do to her? Help me…please help, Pyramid, please…."

An idea came into my mind and I pulled out a coin from my pocket. On the wall of the stall, I wrote in scratchy letters that looked nothing like my actual writing; _Kill Veronica Wilson._

The bell rang to start the class and I was still in the bathroom stall. I didn't want to leave. The stall provided more of a sanctuary than outside. I remained sitting down on the toilet and I cried. That was just so scary and I didn't understand why they did that. Was Veronica mad that I had injured her hand? But she had always treated me like that. None of it made sense.

To make myself stop crying, I stood up and took in a deep breath and thought to myself, _Pyramid will take care of it. He'll handle it. It was his promise. He'll do it, yeah, he'll do it, and he'll be there to protect you, Tetsu, and he won't let Veronica ever hurt you again. You'll be alright, you'll be alright…just wait here in the bathroom. Just wait. Just breathe and wait, breathe and wait, everything will be okay. You're alright…everything will be okay, everything will be okay…._


	9. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8_

I was listening to the news. It had been a day later and Veronica was missing. Her parents had offered a reward of ten thousand dollars to anyone who found her, dead or alive. My father was talking about apocalyptic nonsense, saying that this town had bad luck since three kids got murdered and now one is missing. "It's the work of the devil," he said, then began to blame every single little thing on something supernatural.

I stood up and walked into my room. I wanted to talk to Pyramid about what he did to her. Did he kill her and leave her body? Did he frighten her? Or was he messing around with her, possibly bringing her to his world and scaring the hell out of her to teach her a lesson about fear? Fear was what she seemed to enjoy me experiencing most…all of those hands reaching towards me and pushing me back in the center of the circle, all of those people chanting and swearing….

I pressed my hands against the wall, closed my eyes, and took in a deep breath. I thought of my room in that hellish dimension and slowly went forward into the wall. While surrounded by the black gook, I held my breath until I could pull myself out of the 'transition stage,' as I liked to call it.

And, just as I planned, I fell out of the wall and found myself inside of my other room. The dolls on the shelf seemed creepy as they stared at me, but I shrugged them off and went out of the room. The machinery seemed louder than usual and the pipes looked amazingly hot.

I cocked my head at it and wandered around. "Pyramid? Spike?" I called out, then cupped my hands over my mouth. "Pyramid! Spike! Where are you?"

I heard a shrill, feminine scream and I turned my head in its direction.

I walked towards it until I came by a wall with a wide ladder on it. I started to climb up it to the platform that it lead to. It was a tall climb, too, but I didn't really care. The machinery was working harder than usual and I wanted to find out why.

The platform had a single door on the other side and I promptly walked to it. The clinks-and-clanks of the grinding gears made this place suddenly seem more hostile than before, but I was quick to remind myself that this was a haven for me. Nothing would hurt me here.

I opened up the door and I was lead to a hallway with walls that had angles that made it in the shape of a trapezoid, almost like those earthquake-resistant buildings that some countries have. There were arrays of small holes cut into the walls that allowed rays of red light to pour through. I thought that it was strange.

Weird noises echoed down the hallway and I started to run. I wasn't running because I was scared; I was running because I wanted to see what was going on. Was it normal for this place to suddenly become so…different? So active? Or was something else happening? Maybe Pyramid brought Veronica here and she was trying to find her way out. What would I do if I saw her? What would she do if she saw me? God, what would Pyramid do? Skin her?

I got out of the trapezoidal-shaped hallway and found myself in a circular room that somehow reminded me of a sort of observatory. I was up top on the second level that looked down at the first, where in the center of the room was gigantic metal contraption embedded in the floor. It was also circular and had a narrow walkway around it. There also appeared to be Pyramid's sword in the center suspended by a fancy presentation of iron that held it in place.

Even though the lower level was darker than the hallway, I saw Pyramid walk towards the metal contraption holding his sword. He appeared to be looking around for something, but I wasn't sure what.

He stepped up onto the contraption and grabbed onto the handle of his sword that was being held in place horizontally with the tip of the blade resting on the ground. He pushed it forward, but it didn't budge. Then he used more of his strength and the contraption suddenly had parts moving in sync with each other when the blade moved. He pushed the blade forward a few steps, forced to walk in a circular motion due to the shape of the contraption, and his blade made a screeching noise. Then he pulled it outwards and the noise made a decrescendo. He pushed it upwards- still walking forward in the in the circle -and the note of the sword got higher in pitch. Then he brought it down and the note went down in pitch. He pushed the sword inwards to the center of the contraption and the sound became deafeningly loud and high pitch, and then became softer as he pulled it outwards.

He was playing it as an instrument, but why? What was this strange song for? And while the screeching noise of the iron against iron would make most people cringe and think of chalk on nails, I found it to be very melodic and peaceful. The notes were in the perfect synchronization with each other and Pyramid made it sound beautiful.

While he played, gears on one wall started to move quicker and there was a loud clink-clank-clink-clank noise, almost as if something was being lowered. I heard a shrill scream and I looked upwards. I saw Veronica hanging upside-down inside of a rusted, iron cage. Her loose hair dangled down in front of her face and her ankles and wrists were tied to the bars of the cage that was being lowered down by a long, thick chain. A black strip of metal was pressed against her neck to restrain her head and it was attached to a metal harness that was placed on her back.

Veronica screamed and struggled to get free as she was lowered, despite the fact that she was a good two or three stories up in the air. She had squirmed around so much that her wrists and her ankles were bloodied and the red liquid was dripping down onto the hot, metallic floor and collected into a pool.

I said nothing as she was lowered down to Pyramid's level. Pyramid ceased playing his beautiful-sounding song and freed his sword of the metal contraption by pulling it out. He walked over to Veronica, whom was screaming and still trying to escape.

My heart leapt into my throat when I realized what it was that he was doing. He was going to execute her.

Pyramid rose his sword to Veronica's abdomen, pulled it back to ready it and build up strength, and then thrust it forward. Veronica squealed as her organs were sliced in half and blood poured down her body to her head. It tangled up in her hair and dyed the blonde colors into a deep, dark red.

Pyramid withdrew his sword and Veronica was left there to bleed to death. All of her blood was draining out of her body at a rapid rate and after about thirteen seconds, she was silent and became completely limp.

I wanted to scream something out, but I didn't. I wanted to say something, but I didn't. Pyramid just executed her. Just KILLED her. Another one of my problems was gone…but why did he kill her in such a manner? Why didn't he just kill her when she wasn't expecting it? Why didn't he just frighten her and leave her to live out her life instead? He could have just taught her a lesson, but no; instead he killed her.

There must have been a reason why, must have been something that caused him to decide to do that. Pyramid had his own verdict and I figured that I probably just didn't understand it. I wanted to talk to him…ask him questions, ask him why, ask for clarification.

Despite the fact that my feet felt like they were plastered to the floor, I turned around and walked away from the room. I would return to my room and wait for Pyramid to come.

I held one of the dolls against my chest as Pyramid entered my room, this time without his bloodied blade. He walked over to me and simply stood there, deciding not to sit down or kneel to my level.

"Why did you do that?" I asked.

"Judgment," he replied.

"What does that mean?"

"The weight of one's crimes will determine their fate. Veronica was going to push you into the river next year in January while you would be walking to school. It wouldn't have killed you, but you would have gone into hypothermia and would have been seriously injured."

I gave him a quizzical look. "How do you know that?"

"I am Judgment, the punisher of the Sinners. She tortured you for many years, and in that time, her sins built upon one another. She brought it upon herself, and she knew what she was being punished for."

I was silent for a while as I tried to process what any of that meant.

"You will understand it eventually, Tetsu."

"But you just…I mean, she was…but, I…you…." I stuttered an incoherent sentence while I attempted to put my thoughts in order. I had hated Veronica, I truly did, and I was glad that she was gone. I was glad that he killed her. I wanted Pyramid to kill her and he did. But why couldn't I seem to process that incontrovertible fact in my mind?

Pyramid held up his hand and said, "She brought it upon herself."

"I know, that's what you just said, but…what do you mean by 'I am Judgment?'"

"You often think that I am a god," he replied.

I nodded my head.

"Think it that way."

* * *

><p><strong>The song that Pyramid Head was playing is called 'Red Pyramids' and is a soundtrack from Silent Hill 2 :) Here's a link to the song (it sounds really cool, but just copy and paste the URL without all of the spaces): http :  / youtube .com/watch?v=nyd2loU5eOw**


	10. Chapter 9

I looked at the calendar and I couldn't believe that it had already been three months since I first met Pyramid. In that time period, he had 'punished' about twenty-six people, and during that time, people started to leave me alone. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was now involved with the missing persons, but little did they know, they were already dead. To them it was just all a mystery, and everybody at school began to realize that whoever pushed me around, hurt me, or harassed me, either went missing or their body was found mutilated in some manner or another.

Some of my tormentors lost their heads, others were split in half, some skinned, and some…I couldn't even tell what had happened to them. All what I knew was that they deserved it.

I was happy about it. They left me alone after they started to realize that trend. The only downfall was that the police had me as a suspect, but they didn't know anything about Pyramid. There was no possible way for me, with my eighty-pound body that was under five feet tall, to destroy bodies in such a manner that Pyramid did. I was glad that my looks could deceive, and since they also had no knowledge about 'the other world,' there wasn't any way for them to prove that a human being could have committed the crimes. There were no human footprints, no human hair, no one else's blood other than the victim's, and no weapons. Just a body and no evidence of me.

I smiled at the picture of Pyramid that I pinned up on my wall and kissed the tip of my finger, then pressed it against his helmet. I loved Pyramid. With all of my heart. He wasn't just my guardian; he was my best friend and my brother. Every morning and every night before I went to bed, I gave a kiss to a picture of him. Every time I saw him, I would always give him a big hug and kiss him on his helmet.

Our friendship was amazingly strong. We were inseparable and I promised to him every single day that I would always be his friend.

I laid down on my bed and put my hands behind my head. Pyramid had changed my entire life so dramatically (for the better). Sure, I was a social reject, but I wasn't asking for friendship from other people. I just wanted them to leave me alone.

I eyed my sketchbook and grabbed it. I started to flip through the pages and couldn't help but smile at the pictures of the monsters that I had drawn. Apparently I hadn't met all of the monsters, but I kept a record of those that I knew.

The first was Pyramid, then Spike. Then there was Mannequin. (By the way, there was an indefinite number of Mannequins in that hellish place. There seemed to have been an indefinite number of all the monsters there, but there were specific ones that I personally knew. They would come up to me and I could distinguish them from any others that were nearby.) She (or he, I wasn't really sure) was two pairs of legs attached to a torso that walked around like a spider and often did front-and-back flips to move around.

The other that I had met was- what I called her -a Hanging Figure. She hung upside down in a cage with her legs fused together to the metal while her discolored arms hung down loosely by her head. She was a rusty-color and had black hair, and her arms looked like they were burnt. I could easily distinguish her from the rest because she had a large gash drawn from her abdomen to her lower thorax.

She couldn't speak, but instead made strange mumbling, gurgling noises. She appeared to have the ability to listen to me. Even though she was hanging upside-down from a cage, she could control where she wanted to go. Unfortunately, she was confined to the one room that she couldn't leave. One of the things that I thought to be strange was that the ceiling of the room was so tall and stretched so far that it faded away into darkness, and the chain connected to her cage didn't seem to have an end to it. Whenever she moved, there was the sound of metal and gears being moved, so I figured that there must have been some sort of contraption all the way up there in the darkness that allowed her to travel.

Then there was Wormy. He was the body of a man covered in dirt and gook and had a sideways mouth stretching from his chin to his forehead that had razor-sharp teeth. His arms were free, but his legs- like Hanging Figure's -were fused together in one lump of flesh, only his were stretched out into a long tail. He moved by crawling around on the ground and he also couldn't speak, but he seemed to like to follow me.

He also taught me how to play hide-and-seek.

Creeper was probably the weirdest of them all. He was a little shorter than Pyramid and had a thin body, except instead of legs, he had needle-like blades and his arms looked like a praying mantis's arms. He also didn't have a head. Instead, there was a very thinned-out neck with the tip of a white vertebrae sticking out. His body was so thin that the skin was tightly wrapped around the bones, which caused his neck and his spine to look like bumpy sticks.

And, of course, there was Rupture. He was the body of a person nearly sliced in half vertically and could open-and-close himself like a mouth. He had no organs, so nothing obviously fell out. When he was put together in one piece, he looked like he wasn't cut at all. When he opened up, the muscles and bones had a slight red glow to them and let out an intense amount of heat. He had sharp teeth where he was severed, so when he closed himself up, he would easily be able to bite onto something.

There were several others that I had seen, but I didn't know them too well. I'd come to know them better someday, but I had spent a lot of my time playing hide-and-seek with Wormy. He was really good at it, especially since he could climb around, up, and under objects. Thanks to his method, I was forced to climb into the smallest, tightest, and most difficult corners. My goal was to always wait at least an hour before he found me, but he always found me within forty minutes. Either way, it was fun and I enjoyed it.

I stood up, got off of my bed, and pressed my hands to the wall. I felt like playing hide-and-seek and Wormy.

I fell out of the wall and was quick to get up. I walked over to my bureau, grabbed a black-haired doll, and skipped out of the room. I went down the metal hallway and squinted at the bright, red lights that leaked through the walls. I felt happy…I was always happy to be here.

I heard a scuttling noise behind me and I turned around. I saw Mannequin, with her snowy-white skin and all, approach me in her spider-like walk. I smiled at her and stroked her smooth skin like I would to a dog, and she reacted like how a cat would (she even stretched). She wasn't a small monster, no; she was tall, about five and a half feet, and I was four feet and nine inches.

She followed me out to the room where Pyramid's sword-contraption-instrument thingy was. She and I climbed down the thick metal meshing to the first floor and I called out Pyramid's name.

"Pyramid!" I called. "Where are you? It's me, Tetsu…and Mannequin."

I heard the screech of iron doors opening and Mannequin started to jump up and down on all fours in excitement as Pyramid walked into the room. I joined in her enthusiasm and I ran up to Pyramid. I wrapped my arms around his waist and gave him an embrace. Since his hands were free, he picked me up and carried me to the other side of the room like how a father would carry his young daughter. I gave him a kiss on the side of his helmet and he set me down, then gestured for me to step up to where his sword was being held by the metal contraption.

"I want to teach you something," he said.

I said with excitement, "Are you going to teach me how to play this…thing?"

He nodded his head.

I smiled broadly while Mannequin scuttled around us in her excited state and I stepped up to the strange instrument-thingy. Pyramid was next to me and we both grabbed onto the handle. "Push forward," he said, and I did as I was told. The only problem was that it didn't budge.

I tried again, this time with the help of Pyramid, but it still didn't move. Pyramid firmly planted his feet into the ground and used all of his strength to push forward. Without notice, the sword jolted forward and I stumbled at the sudden movement. With the thing now loosened, we gently pushed forward. Pyramid pulled the sword outwards and I copied his movement, then pushed it forward.

I had been studying the way how he played it for the past month and constantly noted the placement of his feet and his hands. I would often just sit in the room for hours, listening to the beautiful songs that he could compose with the sound of screaming metal….

We pushed it inwards, then forward more quickly, then slowed it down. I still didn't know what the purpose of the songs were, but whenever I asked him, he didn't want to tell me. I shrugged it off and figured that it was none of my business. Who was I to question him, anyways? Besides, it was fun to play this instrument…especially since one of the notes required me to jump into the air and the sword's momentum kept me suspended for a good three or four seconds.

We ended the song, but my smile remained on my face. I loved it here so much. I just wished that I could stay here forever….

* * *

><p>Wormy slithered next to me as we walked. He used his arms to help support himself and could easily keep up with my pace. Even when I ran, he could pass me.<p>

He crawled through a small vent in the corner of the room and I followed him. I had to get down on my stomach and crawl forward with my arms, but I didn't mind. I thought that it was fun. I noticed that every time he made me crawl through tight spaces, he encouraged me to go a little faster. I didn't really know why. Maybe he was testing me, maybe he just wanted me to go quickly. Either way, I didn't really care.

As we crawled forward, I noticed that one of the sides of the vent was missing pieces of metal. I could see a fiery background and saw huge, metal fans turning. Something about it was peaceful and I wanted to stay and gaze at it, but Wormy urged me to continue forward.

We came out to a new place that I had never been in before. It was just a simple empty room, except for one of the walls, which had nine perfectly-shaped holes in it, all in an array. They were dark on the inside and I couldn't see what was there.

Wormy supported his weight with his arms again and then reared back like a cobra. He held his arms close to his chest and lolled his head towards me, then towards the holes. Did he want me to choose one? What was he doing?

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

Wormy pointed to the second hole on the ground.

"You want me to go through?"

He made a gurgling noise and seemed to have nodded his head.

I only smiled and walked over to it. I had no clue what was on the other side, but I liked Wormy and I trusted him.

I got down on my hands and knees and crawled forward. I kept one arm in front of me to make sure that I didn't bump into anything, but the interior was smooth and free of objects.

It took me three minutes to reach the end, but once I did, I could see a small light at the end of the tunnel. I was careful when I got down, but when I jumped out of the hole and landed, I felt something very cold cover me from the waist down. At first my mind didn't register what it was, but I realized that it was water.

A lot of water.

Wormy slid down from the hole and entered the flooded room. He swam like a snake and circled me twice.

"The other place was fire…this is water?" I asked, but got no response from him. "Why is it flooded? This water's freezing!" I exclaimed and looked around the room. The walls had moldy wallpaper on them with dark, woodened panels. There were no light bulbs, but the ceiling seemed to have produced some sort of strange, eerie, light-bluish glow that allowed me to see. Water dripped from the ceiling at a steady rate, which gave the silent place (or world) a bit of noise.

"Is this where you live?" I asked and walked forward. It was difficult to travel through simply because it was water and was up to my waist. Wormy was lucky to be able to glide through the water with ease, whereas I had to practically hike through it. "Why'd you bring me here?"

Then I thought for a moment. I didn't know how to swim, so was Wormy going to teach me how to swim?

Seven hours passed and I had obviously been drenched with water the entire time. My skin felt rather tender from soaking up so much water and my fingers and toes were pruned. I wasn't in hypothermia, but I had been cold for most of the time. However, I had somehow learned how to swim. Or…at least I could dog-paddle. I was taught the rudimentary elements of swimming, but I was thankful.

Of course I was thankful…swimming was a life-saving skill, but it was never really something that I had thought much about. I remembered Pyramid saying that Veronica was going to push me into a body of water in January and I shivered at that. With that thought in mind, I became very determined to learn how to swim.

Who knew that I could learn something so important from a non-human creature in such a short amount of time?


	11. Chapter 10

Hot tears spilled down my cheeks as I tried to grab Lucky from my father, but he held it out of my reach. I jumped up to try to reach it, but it didn't prevail. My father screamed something at me- I couldn't even understand what it was -and his hand cracked across my face. The sheer force knocked me to the ground and he didn't cease yelling. All what I was thinking of was saving Lucky from my father. Pyramid had given it to me as a gift about three months ago. Sure, it was just a toy, but it was the first gift I had ever gotten and now my father was going to destroy it for a reason that I didn't understand.

He stormed out of my room and I scrambled up onto my feet. My face stung from the whack, but regardless of that, I still pounced (to the best that I could have) on my father to stop him. I attempted to trip him, but it didn't work. Enraged at my protest, he grabbed onto my arm and threw me aside like I was nothing. I hit the floor and my elbow broke my fall, but I paid no heed to the pain.

By the time I had caught up with him, he was in our backyard and had thrown Lucky onto the pile of wood and dead shrubs that my father had collected a few months ago after winter. He whipped around to me and I stopped in my tracks about three meters away from him. I didn't want him to hit me again, but I wanted Lucky back.

I sobbed and wept and wailed and pleaded for him to give me my stuffed animal back, but he only yelled more. He took out his lighter and set the pile of sticks, branches, leafs, and shrubs aflame. I fell down to my knees and begged for him to stop, but be grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and threw me onto the ground. He yelled some more, but again, I couldn't understand what he said. He hit me three more times on my face before he marched up and left me there on the ground in front of the fire that burned by very first, very special gift.

Five minutes later, I sniffled and crawled onto my knees. I could taste blood in my mouth and it dripped down my throat, causing me to choke on the metallic-tasting liquid. My tears mixed with my blood and I spit on the ground to rid myself of the horrible taste. I was covered with dirt and mud and I felt my wounds pound, pulsing with every beat of my heart. All what I could hear (except for my sobbing) was the incontrovertible sorrow of my heart splitting into two pieces, caused by the action of another creature that felt no remorse and gave no mercy to that which was weaker than it.

* * *

><p>I sat in the corner of Hanging Figure's room. She hung beside and made feminine-sounding hisses, almost as if she wanted to communicate with me in one manner or another. The room was dark and everything was silent, save for a soft drone of something in the background.<p>

I held my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around them. I tightly clutched a doll in my left hand and listened to my irregular breaths. I would be forced to hold my breath for a few seconds, but then my chest muscles would contract without my consent and my breath would loudly come out. Then I would need to take in another breath and I would quiver every time.

Usually I would mind it, but this time I didn't. Hanging Figure was here with me, and eventually Spike found his way in. The huge dog walked over to me and whimpered. He licked my face a couple of times and gently pawed my leg, but I just closed my eyes and cried a little louder. He sat down and wrapped his tail around me and himself.

Hanging Figure moved a little closer and Spike looked up to her. He lifted his muscular arm up and pawed her hand. I didn't know what the gesture meant, but I wasn't really interested in it at the moment anyways. I just wanted to cry and apologize to Pyramid for allowing my father to do that atrocity…and he did it to a ten-year-old, too.

We were there for a while until I heard Pyramid walk into the room. Once he was close enough, I looked up to him and tensed with sadness, which caused me to hide my battered face from him.

Pyramid knelt down to my level and put his massive hands underneath my arms. He lifted me from the ground and stood up, then carried me out of the room.

I felt so small being held by him. I remained balled-up in his strong arms while he walked to some unknown room. It was then that I calmed down and relaxed and just allowed myself to be carried. That was also when I realized that I had nothing more to be worried about. Being in Pyramid's arms reminded me of someone taking over the situation, taking away all of my burdens, and just simply comforting me. Pyramid was going to take care of me, I was going to be alright.

While he walked us somewhere, I felt hatred begin to boil up inside of me. I hated my father. I hated Veronica. I hated everybody at the school. I hated the teachers and the administrators.

I hated everybody.

The only thing that I loved was this hellish world. Pyramid, Spike, Hanging Figure, Mannequin, Wormy…all of them. They were scary, disturbing, and freaky, and I loved them. They were my friends and they were my family.

Maybe when I'm older, I'll grow a little more. Maybe when I'm older, I'll build myself up by playing Pyramid's instrument and climbing around all over the place with Wormy. I'll teach myself to give the hardest punch, I'll teach myself to be the fastest runner, and I'll learn how kick like a horse. I've had enough with the society on Earth. I was not going to tolerate any of that anymore. Now that I had these monsters and these friendly creatures to look after me, I didn't need people.

I didn't want people. I hated them. I hated all of them, but it didn't matter anymore. Not to me, anyways.

* * *

><p><strong>Seriously guys, don't allow yourself to be abused or bullied. Even though it's hard, you honestly need to tell somebody. Just think of the other people out there whom have been killed by bullies and whatnot or seriously injured, and I'm sure that none of us want to end up like that _ So please, please, PLEASE, if you are bullied, harassed, abused, etc. go and TELL SOMEBODY, whether it be a police officer, a teacher, parent, another adult, a sibling, or somebody else, because there are a LOT of people out there in the world who will help you and make things right.<strong>

**WOW CAN I MAKE THINGS DEPRESSING OR WHAT?**


	12. Chapter 11

I was sitting on a stool, hunched over in front of a canvas with a painting pallet held in my hand a paintbrush in the other. I mixed a little more white into the tan and got a perfect color, then applied it to my half-finished painting.

Usually people paint flowers or humans or landscapes or other expressive things, but me? I painted monsters. This time I painted a beautiful canvas of Pyramid, who faced the viewer with his menacing sword held in one hand. In the background were cages with bodies hanging from them loosely with a rope around their necks. I made the bodies just mere silhouettes, so I didn't have to be detailed with them.

My room had changed in the past seven years. It was not longer as bland as it used to be. I had pictures and paintings of my world- which I named Underground -hanging on the walls. I had painted the monsters and the machines, but the thing that stuck out most was Pyramid.

There was a three by four foot painting of him next to my bed, then another above my desk. My corkboard was dominated with sketches and drawings (both graphite and charcoal) of him and I had several canvases hanging in random areas of my room. I even dedicated an entire sketchbook to him.

I set my pallet down and walked over to the bathroom. I closed the door and proceeded to wash my brush of the paint on it. As I did so, I turned my head up and looked at myself in the mirror. No longer was I a weak, little girl. Instead I was seventeen, tall, and had quite a bit of muscle. One of the reasons was because I worked my invisible tail off to get stronger and faster. Playing Pyramid's instrument helped in that, but climbing all around Underground made a huge impact. Running up those seemingly endless staircases that led to nowhere in the black abysses allowed me to go on for hours and hours until my legs just couldn't climb anymore. Using just my arms to pull myself up ledges and ladders aided me greatly with my strength, and so did learning how to use Pyramid's sword. I couldn't swing it like how he could, but at least I pull it around with me.

I must admit that I had been tough on myself. I felt like I had trained to go into the army or something, especially since I would crawl around in the mud and force myself to go as fast as I could. I often ignored my body's plea to rest because I was so determined to get better, to get stronger.

Now I guess I didn't really need to work on that as much. My arms and chest were well-built and I was thin, which helped me to be fast. Swimming around with Wormy helped me to develop a good form and, since we always played hide-and-seek, I was good at figuring out the best places to hide and I could still fit in the tightest of crawlspaces. I was never claustrophobic, anyways.

I was happy to be as strong as I was. I could do two hundred push ups without ceasing and I could run and swim indefinitely because my stamina was (pardon my bragging) extremely high. More importantly, I was intimidating. I was five feet and eight inches tall and I was strong.

Through the seven years, I had also discovered something by the name of "college;" a place that's my ticket out of Silent Hill. I just needed to study for four years and that was it. I planned to get a major in art, and after that, I would move to Seattle in Washington, all the way on the other side of the country, and be an artist. That was my plan and those were my goals.

Pyramid was the one who had really told me about it in the first place. Go to college, he would tell me often. He said that it would do me good, but when he told me that I would be able to leave this town, I had my mind set on it.

I had ever since, so I got a job at fifteen. At seventeen, I still had the same job. I worked at an arts and craft store in the Silent Hill Mall and got a discount on the supplies, so I was relatively happy with it. It allowed me to help develop my skills as an artist.

I put my painting supplies away and put my running shoes on. I walked out of the house and began to run down the road towards my workplace. As I ran, I took long strides and timed my breathing to pace myself. The day was sunny and warm there were few cars on the streets since it was three in the afternoon and most adults were still at work.

When I reached the mall, I slowed my pace down and caught my breath. The two-story mall was quite a huge place with a total of two hundred stores that got quite a bit of customers from the neighboring towns. I personally thought that the shopping mall was a neat place. With its many restaurants, jewelry, and clothing stores, I almost always had something to be interested in.

Besides, I made twelve dollars an hour.

I opened up my locker at my workplace and grabbed my clothes. I was quick to change, fixed my shortly-cut hair (I should mention that a woman once mistook me for a man in the bathroom because of the way my body's built and my hair. "This is a _lady's _room," she said to me. When I looked at her and gave her a quizzical expression, she turned red and walked away. After that I wanted to kick her in the teeth), and walked out into the store.

I passed one of my coworkers and she avoided me purposely. She hated to be around me, and one of the reasons was probably because I had scared her a few years back when she pissed me off. People were also superstitious of me because whenever somebody messed with me, they always seemed to have disappeared. They were afraid of me, so what? The customers didn't know, therefore they didn't care.

I got up to the cash register and smiled at the first lady who came to me. She had her arms filled with oil paints and a package of canvases. I ran them through the scanner and she merrily went on her way after she paid, completely ignorant of the fear people had towards me. Not just fear, but the hatred, and the ignorance.

My break came several hours later and I walked out of the store. I liked to look at the shops that I passed, but I especially liked Bar Neely's Restaurant, located right across from a shoe store. The inside of the restaurant was rather quaint. There were five tables and ten booths lined up against windows that looked out at the rest of the mall. Off to the left was a bar, and to the right were empty countertops with red stools placed in front of them. The entire restaurant was Tuscany-styled and they had the absolute best pancakes.

I smiled at the waitress- who was probably the only person that I personally knew who had no clue of other people's behavior towards me -and she immediately took my order. I got my favorite (the buttermilk pancakes) and I looked out of the window to watch the passing people. Such a lovely day, I thought to myself. So many people with smiles on their faces.

The waitress returned and gave me my meal. I smothered them in butter and then poured the sweet syrup all over them. Then a man dressed in a black tuxedo sat down at the other side of the booth and smiled at me.

At first I was dumbfounded. I knew that over in Germany and some other countries, it was expected to sit down with other people and families in restaurants, but in America? People didn't really do that. The stranger thing was that he was alone. I automatically thought to myself, If he is going to hurt me, I will personally kick his ass and stuff him in a dumpster.

"Hello," he said to me and took off his black hat to reveal his gray hair. "You're Tetsu Morris, correct?"

I gave him a puzzled visage. "Do I know you?" I asked. His face looked familiar, but if I had seen him before somewhere, he had changed a bit. Maybe he aged or something.

He laughed and said, "Sorry, allow me to introduce myself first. My name is Tom Roberts, from the police department? I visited you a few years back to see if you knew anything about a couple local murders?"

"Yeah, I remember you," I replied. "You're the guy who told me the story about when you were visiting a school or something and a first-grader thought that a tampon was a stick of dynamite and made the school panic."

He laughed heartily and he held out his hand to me. With a friendly, broad smile on my face, we instinctively shook hands together.

"Is there something that I can help you with?" I asked and let go of him.

"There is, I suppose," he replied.

I immediately didn't like where this seemed to have been going. The local police and the FBI have been involved with the murders for the past seven years but they still had no leads to who or what had killed them. However, I was still a main suspect. Several years back, they had questioned me, but there was never any evidence to prove that I was guilty of anything.

I figured that they never would have, anyways. Even though their intent was to bring some measurement of harm to me, it really didn't matter because I knew that they were just doing their job and that was it. Besides, if they were killed or went missing after they met with me, then that would look very, very bad for me. Pyramid had the same logic towards that, too. Instead, I just acted friendly around them and answered their questions to best of my knowledge, without saying anything that wouldn't help me.

"Remember that teacher of yours, Mrs. Thacker, who went missing about six years ago?"

I nodded my head.

"Well, her aunt, who is in a nursing home, strongly believes that you're responsible for her death. I'm not saying that I agree with her, but she's been repeatedly telling us some odd things."

I swallowed a bite of pancake and asked, "Like what?"

"She keeps on saying that the red-haired girl did. She also says that the triangle-man killed a lot of kids. She even said to me one time that "The Cult" would come and "replace the sin." I think that she's just crazy, but I just wanted to ask you if you know anything about a 'triangle-man,' since we one time found a picture of something like that. It was after those three boys were killed in an alleyway. I'm sure you remember that, right?"

I nodded my head again.

"Yeah, well…there was a picture of a girl and a triangle-headed man. The rain had soaked the paper so there weren't any fingerprints or footprints nearby, but since it was in close proximity to the murders, we've just got another damn mystery on our hands. Do you know anything that might be related to it?"

I felt my feet and hands go a little cold. I remembered the day Mrs. Thacker caught me in the bathroom by myself while I avoided class because of the other students. She had beaten over the head continuously with a cane, over and over and over again until I just lost it and wrapped my hands around her neck. I recalled the uncontrollable urge to hurt, to strangle, to batter, to kill….I remembered being so infuriated and so scared that I choked out every single last breath of the sixty-year-old lady.

Only when I had killed her had I stopped.

I remembered letting go of her and she thumped onto the ground. I had just stood there and stared blankly at the corpse that had scratch marks and huge bruises on her neck. Then some monster from Underground had crawled out of the wall, mumbled a gurgle to me, grabbed onto my dead teacher, and dragged her away. I never saw the body again.

"A…triangle-man?" I asked. "That reminds me of Pythagoras, but other than that, no, I'm afraid not. How old is this lady?"

"She's seventy-five years old. I wouldn't have bothered you, buuut…I have to follow my orders."

"Like a soldier, eh?"

"Yes, soldier's orders. Sometimes my chief has some odd reasons to give us assignments, but I'm just doing my job. Well anyway, thanks for the information. I'm pretty sure that lady is just crazy, but I'm afraid that I need to do what my chief asks me to. Sorry for bothering you."

"It's fine," I said. "I don't mind. If I happen to find out anything about those murders, you know I'd tell you guys."

"That's what I figured," he replied. "You have yourself a good day."

"You too," I said and watched him walk away.

Once he left, I thought to myself. That was a little strange. An old lady in a nursing home talking about a triangle-man? That must have been Pyramid, but she didn't see the murder scene, right? How could have known about him? And what was that about a cult? I knew that Silent Hill had some sort of ancient dead religion that was practiced a hundred years ago or so, but other than that, I didn't know anything else.

With the new information in mind, I continued to finish my meal before I returned to work.

**HOLY CRAP TETSU KILLED HER TEACHER. Well…she **_**was**_** getting beaten by her and went a little berserk…**

**Let's not kill our teachers, m'kay? XD**


	13. Chapter 12

I continued my painting and enjoyed the light breeze that blew in through my open window. It was springtime and the air was warm. The songbirds outside played a beautiful melody and loved to listen to them. It was peaceful and quiet in my room and I was lost in my own world as I mixed paints together to get a good color for the background.

My state of mind was interrupted when the doorbell rang. I heard my father get up and walk over to it. When the door opened, a state officer stood in the doorway with another man behind him. The first man was about as tall as me and wore his uniform with his display of weapons on his belt.

He smiled and said, "Hello, I'm chief police officer Ryan Bartlett. Is Tetsu Morris here?"

I stopped painting and felt a slight surge of panic. I remembered to remain calm and not appear to be nervous. My father said a few words to him and let him step inside.

I saw a figure in my doorway and I looked over to him. I straightened my back (I always slouched whenever I painted) and he took his hat off. He held it to his chest and smiled at me. He was probably in his fifties and had gray hair. He was scruffy with a few wrinkles and showed his patch to me to prove that he was chief police officer just as the other policeman appeared behind him.

"I don't know if you heard me say in the doorway," he said to me, "but I'm Ryan Bartlett, and this is Officer Wheeler. Are you Tetsu?"

I set my pallet down and said, "Yeah, I'm Tetsu. Can I help you with something? I already talked to the other policeman yesterday."

Both of them stepped in my room and looked at my paintings. The chief had a sort of glint in his eye when he saw Pyramid. I didn't know what it was- fear, surprise, nervousness, or something else, I honestly didn't know -but it was present for only a mere millisecond before it disappeared.

"This is interesting," he said and pointed to a picture of Pyramid holding a skin pelt. "Who is that?"

"He's a character from a book that I'm considering writing," I replied and stood up. "Why?"

"Scary," the chief said, then seemed to think about making remarks on my other frightening pictures.

I centered them around the emotion of fear.

"You're quite the artist," the other policeman said while he inspected my sketches of Pyramid and Mannequin. Then he saw the other monsters and raised his eyebrows at a drawing of Creeper.

"Thanks," I said. "Can I help you with something?" I repeated.

"Yes, um…these pictures, the one with the triangle-head-"

"Pyramid Head," I interrupted.

"-yes, him. He looks very similar to a picture that we found near the murder scene of three boys about seven years ago. It was a child's drawing, though."

"The other guy told me about that yesterday."

"He said that you didn't know anything about it," he said and looked at me gravely, "but it looks to me like there's some similarity here between that drawing and your…umm…Pyramid Head."

I felt my heart leap into my throat and I didn't know what to say, so I thought of the first thing that came to my head. "I didn't want to tell him because people think I'm crazy," I replied. "Crazy or cursed. Nobody comes to visit me anyways so these paintings are just…well…what I dream about. I'm not really self-conscious of them or anything."

"And what is it that you dream about?"

"Monsters."

"What kind of monsters?"

"These kind." I gesticulated to all of the monsters. "I guess I'm disturbed…I don't know, but I really don't care. People hate me, you know, and I suppose that always being a social reject has its own toll, huh?"

They were silent for a moment before one of them picked up my sketchbook and started to flip through the pages. He asked me, "Do you have a history of any mental disorders in your family?"

"Not that I know of. I don't think I'm crazy."

He set the book down and said, "Well, I think that our business here is done. Thank you for your time."

Before I could say anything more, they went out of the house.

I stood in my bedroom and allowed my heart rate to come back down. It was seven freaking years ago that I dropped that piece of paper, and now something bad was going to happen because of it. I just knew it.

I washed off my brushes and looked at myself in the mirror again. God, what had I just messed up on?

* * *

><p><strong>In case if you're wondering, yes, I'm using names of people and places from the Silent Hill games :3 I think I might even add in a few cameos of some other people. Maybe Officer Wheeler will be in here sometime XD<strong>


	14. Chapter 13

"Stay away from them," Pyramid ordered in his deep voice. The scars that covered his body (which I don't think I've ever mentioned before, but yes, his body is covered with by scars) glowed an intense, bright red. He illuminated the entire room and I knew that he was mad. He only glowed red when he was mad. And, judging by the brightness of the light, he was furious.

I didn't know why he was mad. He wasn't mad at me, that was for sure. I had told him about the police officers that came to my house and acted strangely. When I had asked him about them, he only got angrier and angrier. It seemed as if he wanted to tell me about them, but something held him back from doing so. It was if he was being restrained by something invisible that wasn't allowing him to speak of the subject.

Either way, he told me to stay away from them, and I would do that to the best that I could. He also told me to stay away from the church and its people, but that was a problem for me. My father was very religious and I went to church every Sunday. I was forced to, even though my views on religion were very different from all of those people and my father. If I stayed behind, my father would probably beat me.

Then again, a year ago, he attempted to hit me but I caught his fist and punched him in the face. He hadn't laid a finger on me since.

"What wrong with the church people? What about the priest? I mean, I don't like them, but what's wrong with them?" I asked.

Pyramid made a mumbled grumbling noise. He tried to say something, but he couldn't. He started to glow brighter and apparently got frustrated.

To save him from his frustration, I said, "You know what, Pyramid? It's alright, I'll stay away from them. But what about tomorrow? It'll be Sunday. You know I need to go to church."

Pyramid shook his head and said, "Don't go. Don't go."

A moment passed before I said, "Are you able to tell me why?"

He shook his head.

I would listen to him. I'd play sick. Maybe I'd pretend to have the flu or something. My father wouldn't want me to "despoil the altar with a contagious sickness."

* * *

><p>I locked the bathroom door and looked at the clock. It was ten-thirty and my father would leave for church in about ten minutes.<p>

"Tetsu!" he yelled. "Hurry up! You'll be late for church."

"I can't go," I said loudly and lifted the lid to the toilet. "I feel sick."

"Take a medicine and get yer butt out here. You're going to church."

I filled a cup of water and splashed it into the toilet while making gagging, choking noises to mimic somebody throwing up. Apparently it worked.

After a couple moments, he said, "Alright, but yer gonna go to church tomorrow and speak with the priest. Can't miss a day, ya know."

I stopped and heard him walk out of the house.

"Crap," I said and stood up. I looked outside of the bathroom window and watched my dad drive away. "Now what?" I said. I then began to talk to myself. "That just defeated the purpose. I'll be forced to go there tomorrow anyways." I walked out the bathroom and looked up at the ceiling while I leaned my back against the wall. "Pyramid Head, what do I do? I know that you don't want me to go near them…and I don't know why…but I'm going to have to, anyways. Did you not know that? What do you want me to do?"

* * *

><p>My attempt obviously failed and I found myself standing in front of the church. I had a nervous feeling settle in my stomach and it felt like it was weighing me down. I didn't know why, but I didn't want to be in the church. At least I tried to get out of it, but I was afraid at what my father might have done to me. Every step that I took towards the stone building made me want to turn around. I could have sworn that I heard things telling me to stay out of the church, but I went inside anyways.<p>

The entire time, I was apologizing to Pyramid. I couldn't think of anything else to do. I knew that he could hear me. He could hear my thoughts sometimes, or feel my emotions, so he knew that I was sorry.

I stepped inside and the little whispers of voices that I thought I heard had disappeared. I looked around the familiar, quiet building and decided that I must have just been hearing things.

Near the altar were the priest and the chief police officer, which I thought to be strange. There was also a woman there with long locks of orange hair that spilled over her shoulders. She was as tall as me and wore a tight-fitting blue dress.

Now me, as an artist, made a mental note to myself that she apparently knew something about colors, because blue and orange are opposite colors. Either she wanted people to notice her hair or her dress, but I decided that I didn't really care. I had never seen her before, but maybe I could establish a good relationship with her if she were a fellow artist.

My father, who appeared to be excessively grave lately, walked me up to them. In fact, when the three of them turned to me, they were all very serious-looking. I wondered what was wrong.

"You must be Tetsu Morris, are you not?" the orange-haired lady asked.

I smiled and we shook hands together. "Yeah, I'm Tetsu. Who're you?"

"My name is Eva, and I'm sure that you've met these two before."

"Yeah, sure I have. Is something wrong? You all look upset."

The priest stepped up to me and glanced at the ground before he clasped his hands together and said, "We need to speak to you in private, Tetsu. Your father has already been informed of this and we have reached an agreement."

"An agreement of what?"

"Come with us, child," Eva said. "You shall see."

We walked away from my father and passed through a set of doors in the back of the church. The stairs lead downward to the basement to a room that I never even knew existed.

I heard something; a mere wisp of wind with incomprehensible words, and that time I was certain that I had heard it with my own ears. My mind didn't make me think of a noise. Before I could speculate on it further, the priest began to speak.

"Did you not know what we judge angels? Did you not know that the angels will judge the world?"

I looked around the foreign room. It was lighted only by candles and was as large as the upstairs. There was an open area in the center of the room with a strange mark painted in red. It was a circle, and inside were three smaller circles. Outside were symbols of a language that I couldn't recognize. On the outskirts of the room were arrays of benches with fancy, red, expensive-looking carpets laid out in front of them.

"What is this place? I didn't know that the church had this." I sniffed the air. "And why does it smell like smoke?"

"Save your questions, child," Eva said. "Come, sit down." She gestured to a bench and I felt uneasy, but I sat down regardless and put my hands on my lap.

The priest sat across from me and the chief stood next to him. The priest said, "You have sinned, Tetsu."

"I'm sorry, but I was sick yesterday and I didn't want to-"

"No, Tetsu," he said. "You have sinned, therefore you must atone. This is not a matter of you skipping church yesterday. This is an…otherworldly matter."

My stomach twisted into knots and I knew that I appeared nervous to them. "What do you mean? I…okay, I admit it…I didn't want to go to church yesterday so I played sick. Would God really be upset about that? I wanted to paint instead."

"That's not it, Tetsu," the priest said. "You have consorted with the Devil and we cannot risk you bringing Hell into our already-unstable world."

My heart leapt into my throat. Was he talking about Pyramid? How did he know about that?

"But we can save you, child," Eva said, "for God loves even you. We can cleanse you of your sin. We can purify you. All what you must do is endure a few minutes of pain, and then you shall be reborn from the ashes of your eternal, cleansed soul. I am afraid that you cannot decide on this your own, child. It must be done. In the end, your rebirth will save you from eternal damnation."

The room smelt like smoke. It didn't take me very long to figure out what they were saying.

They wanted to burn me to death.

I stood up and said, "I'm sorry, but I really don't feel very comfortable being here in this room."

The policeman took out his nightstick and I rose my hands in the air so show that I wasn't going to fight back. "We saw your room yesterday, Tetsu," he said. "The things that you drew and painted…it will hurt only for a bit. You are still young and therefore innocent, and for that, we will cleanse your soul and rebirth you."

He swung his nightstick at me but I dodged it. In a panic, I grabbed onto his arm and roughly turned it around. I snapped his arm in half by twisting his humorous bone out of the elbow's socket. He yelped in pain and I kneed him between the knees before I punched him in the face with my knuckles.

I sprinted away and headed for the doors to the upstairs, but they were locked. I yelled for help, but the policeman got back up on his feet. I saw that he had a gun and I charged after him.

Quite frankly, I tackled him to grab onto the handgun he held. He stood up and grabbed me around my abdomen, picking me up off of the ground as he did so. I dug my nails into his neck and he let go. I managed to steal his handgun but he tried to punch me in the head. I dodged it again by ducking and grabbed onto his legs. I picked him up and body-slammed him headfirst onto the ground.

He went unconscious and I held the gun up to Eva and the priest. Without thinking, I turned around and headed for the doors again just as somebody opened them from the outside. It was a nun who had come to inspect what was happening in this strange room, but she quickly moved out of the way when she saw me burst through the doors.

I felt a surge of panic again and I sprinted up the stairs, through the church, and out of the front doors. In my haste, I dropped the gun (typical, no?) and ran away from the church.

As the sprinted down the road, I looked behind myself to see if anybody was following. The policeman, bloodied and beaten, ran to his car and started to chase after me.

I turned right into an alleyway and continued my escape down the narrow street. I searched the outsides of the empty buildings for anything to climb up on, such as a fire escape, but this was an old area of Silent Hill and nobody lived here anymore.

I ran into a dead end-alley where the walls of the two buildings were very close together. I put my feet on one wall and my hands on the other, then began to climb my way up to the roofs of the buildings. It was similar to what I did in Underground and my body was familiar to it, therefore I was quick to get to the top before the policeman entered the alleyway.

I grabbed the ledge and hauled myself onto the flat roof. I could hear my heart beat in my ears and my lungs kept a steady but quick rhythm of inhale-and-exhale. I stood up, looked over the edge, and saw the bamboozled policeman standing in the alleyway.

I walked away from the edge of the building and wiped the sweat from my brow. I looked up to the cloudy sky and saw that it started to rain. I couldn't stay up here forever, so I found a fire escape far away from the alleyway and jumped onto it. It rattled and clanged loudly but I steadied myself and climbed down to ground level on an opposite street. For now, I was safe from the policeman, but I had another problem on my hands.

I couldn't go the police over this. My father…he had _agreed_ to let them _kill_ me? This was bad…this was very bad. What's even worse is that Pyramid or the other monsters didn't come to help me. I had heard voices, but the moment I entered the church, they stopped.

What the hell was going on?


	15. Chapter 14

"Pyramid, what the _hell_ happened?" I asked. "Where the hell were you? That man…he had a gun with him! What happened?"

Pyramid slowly shook his head from side to side and his shoulders sagged down. "Can't enter," he said.

"Can't enter? You mean you can't go into the church?"

"They can't either." He gestured to Spike and the monsters that were in the background crawling around the walls.

"Why?"

"Their faith is blind. We can't enter."

I was silent for a moment. I didn't know what that meant, but I needed to focus on the more immediate problem. "Then…what do I do?"

"Leave."

"But I don't have anywhere to go."

"Subway," Pyramid said.

"The…subway? But I don't have any money. Well…I mean, I have my savings account, but I don't think that it'd be a smart idea for me to withdraw anything. The amount of money that I take out could determine how far away I could get from Silent Hill. For all I know, I could be denied access to my account. Who knows what the police can do."

"Steal."

"But I…I can't go back to Silent Hill," I said. "Unless if…well, unless if I go back to my house at night. But my father agreed to have them kill me so he'd probably…I just…." I don't know why, but tears started to well up in my eyes. I wasn't even sad. I was just stressed. And scared.

Pyramid put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Steal, go to subway, then leave."

"What if I just stayed here? I mean, sure, other people will be 'dragged' in here, but couldn't we just kill them or something?"

"Inventions are humankind's greatest weapons. They can kill your friends."

I looked around at the human-looking monsters that appeared to be oblivious to what was happening. "You mean the monsters?"

"Yes."

I took in a deep breath and sighed. "Alright. I go to my house tonight and steal money from my dad, then I'll go the subway and go to…um…Ashfield. They have a train that goes south of here. Should I go to a city or something? There's a lot of people in a city. It'd be harder for them to find me."

Pyramid shook his head. "Ashfield for now only."

I was about to ask why, but I stopped myself. I didn't need to question him.

* * *

><p>It was around two in the morning and I quietly opened the window to my dad's bedroom. He was sound asleep (and snored very loudly) and I'd be careful not to wake him.<p>

Unlike me, my dad didn't have a savings account. Hell, he didn't even go near a bank, never mind keep money there. Instead, he kept it all in his mattress (don't ask why) and in a box on his bureau. I didn't know how much money was inside of the box, but I knew that it'd be enough to buy me a subway ticket.

As I reached over to grab the box, my father turned around to my direction in his sleep and snored loudly. I stilled and waited for a moment before I was sure that he wasn't awake. Then I snatched the box, quietly snuck over to the window, crawled out of the room, and gently closed it again.

My father wasn't intelligent enough to know how much money he had in this box, so I figured that I was safe taking it. If there were two thousand dollars in it and he said to the police that there was a hundred, then that'd be wonderful for me. If there was a hundred and he said two thousand, then that would still be good for me. The amount of money that I took could have very well lead them in the complete opposite direction that I was going.

The window clicked shut and I cautiously walked away from my house. The nighttime air was cool and damp and the cold breeze felt nice against my skin. It calmed down my racing heart and reassured me that I'd be alright. Outside, my father wouldn't be able to see me. If somebody did see me, then I could just run into the trees for cover.

The moon was full, so there was enough light outside for me to inspect the dollars bills. Most of them were fifties and twenties, but after I added them all up, I found that I had stolen about five hundred dollars. That could last me a while.

I put the box down on the ground and looked at my room. I had a bag in there that I could use. Plus I needed clothes. So I did the same thing again; I broke into my house for a second time, grabbed my schoolbag, filled it with clothes and a few other items that I'd need, and left for good.

I took one last look at my bedroom as I slung my backpack over my shoulder and sighed. For seven years, I had been safe and had complete bliss in Underground. I had plans to go to college. But now, that couldn't happen. At the very least, my plans could be set aside, but I was certain that they were abolished forever.

As I walked away, I couldn't help but think about how all this went wrong. It's not that I liked my house or my father or anything, but I was sad when I left. It was probably because I only knew Silent Hill and had never been outside of the town before, and now I was going out into the rest of the world. I didn't know my way around and there was no guide to help lead me. Frankly, I was scared.

* * *

><p>I was in the bathroom in the subway. I had dressed myself in my disguise and looked myself over. I had a black shawl draped over my shoulders and a bandana wrapped around my head. I was pretty much forced to wear something to cover my hair up because, as far as I know, there aren't many people out there in the world with hair as bloody-red as mine. My black raincoat went down to my knees and I wore blue jeans with black boots. I had gloves on my hands and wore a pendant around my neck with a silver cross on it. I put on my sunglasses, sighed to myself in the mirror, and walked out of the public restroom.<p>

Outside, I walked into the crowd and followed the arrows that lead to Ashfield. I had never gotten a ticket before, so I mimicked what everybody else was doing.

I casually strolled up to the ticket booth and asked, "Can I have one ticket for South Ashfield, please?"

The tired-looking employee fumbled around with a machine and I handed her the money. She gave me the ticket, I calmed down my nerves from doing something that I had never done before, and went down the stairs where I waited for the subway to arrive.

I sat down on a bench next to a young-looking man. He had brown hair with strands that dangled down in front of his greenish-brown eyes. He wore a light-gray polo shirt and old-looking blue jeans. A backpack sat next to him and he held a map in his hand. He repeatedly tapped it with his index finger while he waited patiently.

I was curious what that map was. Maybe I could use it. I leaned over to him and said, "Excuse me, sir?"

He looked at me and a warm smile appeared on his face. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes, umm…that map, uh…what's it a map of?"

"Silent Hill," he replied. "Have you ever been there before?"

His voice was quiet and mellow and I relaxed. "Yeah, I visited there once before. I really only liked the lake."

"Toluca Lake?" he said and adjusted his position towards me. "I stayed at the hotel on the north end. It's really quite a beautiful place."

"Hotel? Were you vacationing?"

"Only for three days," he replied. "Anyway, my name's Henry Townshend." We shook hands together.

"I'm…umm…I, uh…."

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"I'm trying to get to Ashfield and I've never used a subway before and my boyfriend just broke up with me and I don't know what to do because I can't pay my rent and my dog just died and I-" I wanted to slap myself in the face. I had been so nervous that I had just started to blurt out random excuses and lies. I didn't know what to do.

Henry held up his hand and gave me a concerned look. "Are you lost?"

I nodded my head, afraid that my voice would begin to choke. I felt so weak tearing up over the littlest thing. Why couldn't I just be strong like all of those people in the movies? But a movie is a movie, not real life. In real life, you'd cry. In real life, you wouldn't be able to stand as strong as Brad Pitt or George Clooney the entire time. People aren't Superman or Batman. You'd break down eventually and cry because people want to kill you and you've nowhere to go. I had every reason to cry.

Before I even noticed it, my fear happened and I choked up in front of Henry. I started to cry. I took my sunglasses off to wipe my tears away. God, why did I have to cry every single time?

I felt a little bad for Henry because he obviously didn't know what to do, and at this point, a couple people's attention had been captured. So he did the only that he thought of and put his hand on mine.

I took in a deep breath and calmed down again. I hated it whenever that happened to me.

"If you need a place to stay," Henry said, "since you said that you can't pay your rent, I'm heading back to my apartment right now. I really don't mind. You can't just stay out in the streets for the night."

I shook my head and said, "No, no, no, I couldn't do that."

"I'm fine with it," he said just as the subway pulled up.

Both of us stood up and I noticed how thin Henry was. He was six feet tall but probably only weighed a hundred and twenty pounds. We were going to the same place, but I didn't know who this man was, how old he was, what he did for a living, and I couldn't be certain if he was really just being hospitable to me or if he had something else in mind. Since I had never left Silent Hill, I had never really encountered any 'creeps' before or anything so I didn't know whether or not I could trust Henry.

Regardless, he and I got into the same subway and I stayed beside him. He was probably the only other human who could help me during that time.

* * *

><p><strong>Daww, Henry's a good guy :3 (Henry's from Silent Hill 4, for those of you who don't know.) He's going to be in the story only a little bit, but he's not going to be as important as Pyramid Head or Spike or Tetsu. However, his bathroom gets a little important :3<strong>


	16. Chapter 15

"Come in," Henry said as he opened the door to his apartment and gestured for me to enter.

I walked inside and started to blurt out a thousand thanks to him for allowing me stay the night.

Henry smiled and held up his hand again. He said, "It's alright. I don't have a guest bedroom, but the couch pulls out into a bed. You can use that."

"Again, Henry, thank you so much. I really don't have anywhere else to go."

He glanced at the clock and I followed his line of sight. It was seven at night. "Anyway, I haven't eaten yet. I was going to make pasta."

"Henry, I'll eat anything you got," I said and smiled.

A few minutes later, he busied himself in his kitchen while I set my belongings down. "Henry, is it alright if I use the bathroom?"

"Of course," he said. "Can't see why not. It's down the hall on the right."

I entered his bathroom and locked the door behind me. The moment I stepped inside, I felt an overwhelming surge of something. I didn't know what it was, but I felt like I was drawn towards the wall that had the sink embedded in it. I put my hands up on the wall and I didn't even have to push my way through. I was pulled through instead.

I like to say that I gracefully came out on the other side, but instead I stumbled through and fell flat on my face. When I opened my eyes and collected myself again, I looked around where I was. Pyramid stood not too far away and he held his sword in his hand. He wasn't glowing red and appeared to be his normal self.

I got up on my knees and stood up. I smiled at him and said, "I don't know Henry that well, but I figured that I could trust him."

Pyramid took a few steps closer to me. I wrapped my arms around him and we hugged each other. Even seven years later, I felt so safe being held by him. I always enjoyed that overwhelming warmth that his body strangely had. It never grew old.

"I think I'll go to the park," I said as we let go of each other. Of course, I didn't mean an actual park. The room with the nine holes leads me to it. Each hole leads to a different world; a water world, an amusement park, an apartment building, Silent Hill (but a version covered with by fog and ash), a hospital, a random building (I have no clue what the building would be used for), a prison, and a world of machines. The last I didn't dare to go into. Why? Because the room is whatever my mind creates. I went there once, right after I murdered my teacher and I discovered that I didn't like what my mind had created. I knew that I was disturbed, but what I had seen in that room…it was something that I never wanted to see again. Even though I see all of these disturbing monsters and horrific worlds, that one room was the worst. I remember being frozen in my place at what I had seen, unable to move, but I had screamed. That was when Pyramid came and brought me back to my room.

I never went back.

* * *

><p>I needed time to think, and the amusement park was the perfect place for that. Of course, all of the worlds were in the classic hellish form; cages, rust, metal, and blood everywhere, but the different worlds had different amounts of lighting. The amusement park had a pitch black sky, but there were lights on the streets.<p>

I walked around with Pyramid behind me. The entire time, I talked continuously to calm my nerves about everything that had happened. After all, I was always told to keep my head and remain calm even in the most difficult of situations. It's some pretty good advice, too.

"I just think that the carousel is so nice, don't you?" I said and turned around to him. I walked backwards up the stairs to the unmoving carousel. It was always my favorite because of the horses.

I had seen pictures of different carousels at different amusement parks (I had never been to a _real_ one outside of this world), but they were all too colorful and cheery. The one here was dark with rusty with blood-stained paints. The horses were dirty with mud and blood that stained their white paints. Instead of a pole holding them in place, they had a huge hook that hung them from their backs. The paint was cracked and the outsides of them looked like broken ceramic pots.

I leaned against a horse and looked at Pyramid. "I love you, you know," I said. "I can never thank you enough for everything that you've done for me."

He grunted a couple times.

"Yeah, I think that I just came here 'cause I need a break or something. But what about Henry? You don't seem to have a problem with him, do you?"

He shook his head.

"That's good to know." I looked down at the blood-stained ground and I was silent for a long time. The light fog that rolled through was gentle and cool and added humidity to the air. As a little girl, I'd come to this park very often and spend hours and hours on the carousel as it spun around in circles. I'd look at all of the cages and the lights and I liked to admire everything that this place had, including the bodies that hung from the cages. At first they had frightened me, but they didn't anymore.

Pyramid mumbled something and walked forward. He lugged his heavy sword behind himself and I followed him off of the carousel and down onto the ground level. He walked to a cage and opened it up, then pulled something out of it. He held a necklace in his hand, but it looked like he took it from the lump of flesh that was hanging down from the cage.

He proffered it out to me and I took it. It had a silver chain with a spherical pendant on it. I opened it up and inside was a purple-colored jewel attached to it. "What's this for?" I asked.

"Wear it," he replied.

I put it over my neck and looked at it. I couldn't help but smile when he said, "It looks good on you."

"Yeah, coming from a guy who wears a thousand-pound helmet on his head." I laughed. "Hey, I know that you can't take your helmet off, but I'm curious to know what you look like. Is it possible to even remove it? The helmet, I mean?"

I noticed his shoulders sagged a bit and he didn't respond.

"Well, I understand."

I took hold of his hand and we walked around for several hours.

* * *

><p>I fell onto the floor (again) in Henry's bathroom, resulting in a old 'thump.' After a moment, I heard him call out, "Umm…lady? Are you okay?"<p>

I smiled and tried not to laugh. Lady? I hadn't even told him my name. Heck, he hadn't even seen my hair color. "I'm alright," I said. "I just tripped."

"Over what?"

"The…toilet. Actually, never mind, that's a lie. Sometimes I trip over nothing." I stood up and brushed myself off.

I heard him laugh.

I looked in the mirror and took off my bandana and shawl. I balled them up together, fixed up my shortly-cut hair, and walked out of the bathroom.

My stomach growled loudly at the scent of the garlic and pasta. I had spent about seven hours in Underground and the last meal that I had eaten before that was breakfast, before those freaks tried to kill me. It had been at least thirty hours or so since my last meal, and I was starving.

And thirsty.

I set my two clothing items next to the rest of my belongings and I saw Henry do a double-take at me.

"Did you dye your hair?" he asked.

"No, I just style it. This is my natural color."

"Really? It's unusual."

"I know." I smiled at him. God, that pasta smelled so good. With a stomach as hungry as mine was, I'd do practically anything to get a plate of that dinner.

I eyed his bookshelf and noticed that the spine of one of the books had the same red symbol that was in the church. I walked over to it and pulled it out. I thought to myself, "_Oh crap, is he in league with those people after me? God, please don't tell me that the one person I just met who has outstanding hospitality is also someone who wants to kill me."_ I opened up the book and saw that the letters were in a strange language.

"Do you like books?" Henry asked.

"Yeah, I guess so. What's this one? It looks like it's in another language."

"I don't actually know. I found it looking through my dad's attic a couple years ago. They were going to move to a new house and wanted to earn a little more money, so I thought that I would help them out. I never read it before. I just thought that it was kind of neat and took it."

I flipped through more of the pages, but there wasn't a single word of English. Why would Henry's dad have something like this? Was he part of what I was beginning to deduce as a cult?

"You can take a shower, if you want," Henry said. "This won't be ready for another thirty minutes."

"Umm…." I put the book away and decided to take his offer for a shower.


	17. Chapter 16

Henry set the dinner on the countertop and we helped ourselves. He didn't have a table; instead, he had an island counter with two chairs. I was so starving that I forgot to thank him for making the meal. Then again, he was probably tired of me saying, "Thank you." all the time.

A couple minutes passed before Henry asked, "So what's your name?"

I swallowed my forkful and said, "My name's Tetsu. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier."

"Do you have anybody that you could go to? Like your parent's house?"

An idea sparked in my mind and I decided to lie. "Yeah, my parents aren't too far away. I was going to go to them tomorrow. I'm also never, _ever_ going to see my boyfriend ever again."

"It's probably none of my business, but what did he do? Do you need to call the cops on him?"

"No, no, it's not like he's abusive or anything. He's just…difficult to get along with, if you know what I mean. He and I shared an apartment and we got into an argument and he paid the majority of the rent because I had a minimum wage job, so the place was technically his. So…he decided to kick me out into the streets. I'm actually glad that it happened because now I don't need to be around that slob anymore."

"So it's a good-bad thing?"

"Pretty much." I took another bite of the pasta and my stomach quickly became happier with me. "So what about you? What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a photographer," he replied.

"Really? For what? Magazines, newspapers...?"

"Actually, I do nature photographry, but sometimes I'll photograph buildings. I also have a few photographry books that've been published over the years. It might not bring in much money, but I'm enjoying it. I hope to maybe become a photographer for National Geographic, but I don't think that'll happen any time soon." He ate a forkful of his dinner and I smiled.

I liked Henry. He was warm-hearted to me and asked nothing in return. Those two traits reminded me of Pyramid.

After that, we set up the couch into a bed. Before I laid down, Henry said, "Tetsu? Can you uh…not steal anything from me, please?"

I laughed. "Trust me Henry, if you thought that I'd steal something from you, then you wouldn't have let me stay the night." Within five minutes, I fell asleep.

* * *

><p>I was woken at seven in the morning by a loud knock at the door. My eyes squinted from the light that protruded from the windows and I stiffly sat upright. The person knocked at the door again and in my half-asleep state, I thought that it may have been somebody after me.<p>

A tired Henry trudged out of his bedroom to open the door. Apparently he had still been asleep as well.

He was about to answer it when I said, "Wait, is it a detective? Or a priest? Who's there?"

He gave me a quizzical expression and looked through the peephole. He said quietly, "It looks like a police officer."

I whispered a strong exclamation of, "Oh fu-" and looked around the room for an escape. "Don't answer it," I ordered.

"Why?"

Great. I had just made friends with a guy and now he probably thought that I was an escaped convict trying to flee from the police and had lied to him for my own benefit. Right when things started to get peaceful….

"Hello? Is anybody there?" the man at the door said, then knocked three more times. "I have important information I need to discuss with you."

Henry looked from the door to me. I silently stumbled out of the couch-bed (surprising that stumbling can be quiet, no?) and repeated to him, "Do _not_ open that door. He'll freaking kill me and I promise you that I will return to this apartment and haunt you for the rest of your life."

"Go into the bathroom," he said.

I snuck to the bathroom and closed the door. Now that I had slept, I could just escape into Underground and go somewhere else. Then I remembered that I had my bag in his living room.

Henry opened the door and, though the voices were muffled, I could hear him say, "Is everything alright, officer?"

"I'm sorry to intrude on you like this so early in the morning, but can I have a few moments of your time?"

"Of course. Come in."

I heard the police officer step into the apartment. He said, "We received a couple sightings that a strange woman was seen near here. She's about five foot eight, red hair, probably wearing some glasses and a black coat. Have you seen her?"

My stomach tied itself into knots and I became extremely nervous.

"Um, why are you looking for her?" Henry asked.

"She's a murder suspect. As far as we know, she's not carrying any weapons, but she's still classified as dangerous. You seen her?"

I tried to process it through my mind. I was in the middle of freakin' South Ashfield, so how the hell did they find me? I wore a disguise and everything, but then…oh that's right. I took my glasses off when I met Henry.

To say the least, I wanted to beat the pulp out of myself for doing that.

"A…_murder_ suspect?" Henry said. "She's actually…right over here."

I heard them walk towards the bathroom and I panicked. I was about to go to Underground, but instead, something wrapped its arms around me and pulled me towards the wall. I tried to struggle free, but I couldn't. Then I saw myself in the reflection of the showerhead and I stilled. A strange, reddish-black gook had quite literally plastered me to the wall and covered my body. The hues of it changed and blended me so that I was invisible.

It also appeared to have fused me into the wall so that I was inside of it, but I could still see the entire bathroom.

Henry opened the door and the policeman followed him. I recognized him to be the officer that was with the chief when they visited me back at my house. I figured that he would have been sent because the chief would have been pretty beaten-up from the battering that I gave him back at the church. Not only that, but he had a broken arm. I wondered if he was in the hospital.

Henry looked perplexed when he saw that I wasn't there. He glanced at the officer and then checked his shower, but I was nowhere. "What the hell?" he said. "Where did she go?"

I held my breath and tried not to make any noises. I knew that they couldn't see me (or feel me either, since I was stuck in the wall), but it was nerve-wracking to have one of my hunters stand just a mere two feet away from me. Worse yet, the stuff that was protecting and hiding me felt like a million bugs crawling over my skin. The sensation was horrible.

My eyes followed Henry as he opened up his cabinet and looked around. He was confused and looked at the ceiling, most likely thinking that maybe there was something there for me to have escaped through, such as a vent. Indeed, he did have a vent, but it was too small for even my thin body to crawl through. There was no possible way that I could have escaped.

"I'm serious, she just went in here a moment ago. Unless if she got into my bedroom," Henry mused. He and the police officer then walked over to his bedroom, so I heard them move things around in an attempt to find me. "Where the hell did she go?" Henry said. "She couldn't have gone out the window; they're still locked."

"What did she say her name was?" the police officer asked.

"Tetsu. She didn't tell me her last name. She told me that her boyfriend broke up with her and she couldn't pay the rent, so she was heading to her parent's house and needed a place to stay. I felt sorry for her and offered her to stay the night."

"Really?" he said. From the corner of my eye, I saw them exit the bedroom. "This is…weird."

They had a conversation together for another minute before the police officer left. Henry returned to the bathroom and looked around it again. "Tetsu? Where the hell did you go?"

I decided to stay where I was. I would have stayed there until he left his apartment, but the feeling of things crawling up and down my skin was unbearable. After he went out of the bathroom, I slowly crawled out of the wall and the black substance clung to me in long strands, almost like flesh being pulled at both ends. Then they snapped in half, shriveled away, and died into the air as if they never even existed.

I figured that I'd grab my bag from his living room and flee Ashfield. Besides, I needed that bag. It had my money in it. Slowly, I opened up the bathroom door and walked down the hallway. I saw Henry in his kitchen. He was probably thinking to himself, "Oh crap, I just let a murderer sleep in my living room." Maybe I could persuade him that I had done nothing wrong.

"Henry?" I said.

He spun around to me and had a look of alarm on his face.

I held my hands up and said, "He was lying, I'm not a murderer. If anything, _they_ are. I promise that I'll leave you alone, okay? Just let me grab my stuff and I'll leave."

He grabbed a knife from his countertop and didn't say anything. I cautiously walked to my bag, retrieved it, and spotted the book with the red symbol on it, identical to the one in the church. I grabbed it and said, "Sorry, but I'm taking this." I went to the door, but before I left, I said to him, "Thanks again for letting me stay. And thanks for the food too. I was starving." When I closed the door behind me, my heart sank. Henry was the only person that I had met who had been nice to me for the sake of being nice.

I briskly walked down the hallway and left the building.

* * *

><p><strong>Woohoo, Henry's a photographer! :D That explains all of the pictures that he has :3<strong>


	18. Chapter 17

I really hated this. As I sat down on the bus and looked outside of the window, my hatred filled up inside of me. It felt like I was bottling it up, waiting for it to explode and overflow like a boiling pot of water. Every time I even remotely started a positive relationship with someone- which was rare -something always happened to tear me apart from that person. Whatever. I still had Pyramid, and my beloved monsters in a heaven that's all too hellish. I'd be a fool if I asked for anything more than what they already gave me.

But I had this burning, irresistible longing to be wanted by more and more creatures. By a human. The yearning felt like it would often claw at me from the inside, shredding my heart into a thousand pieces and made me desperate to glue it back together. But not even glue can make something stay together forever.

As the bus rolled forward out of Ashfield, I glanced down at my necklace. Why did Pyramid give this to me? Was it suppose to mean something? Apparently it did, but what? I decided to tuck it in my shirt when an old lady sat down next to me. We smiled briefly at each other and I decided to change my attention to the scenery outside. It was dark and cloudy and began to rain. I hoped that Pyramid didn't mind me thinking about Henry so much. I really did like him because I didn't even know the man and he had been so hospitable to me. He asked nothing in return, either. He was calm, pacific, laid-back, and overall a mellow man with the small, quiet voice of a person who didn't want to be noticed by many and enjoyed the company of a few. But of course, I had to be torn away from him. But in those hours that I knew him, there had been a small friendship formed between an innocent person with the will to help another innocent person that was the victim of misfortune.

I hoped to God that were more people out there in the world like Henry.

I glanced at the clock on the bus and saw that I had another two hours until we reached our destination. God, this was going to be a long trip….

* * *

><p>I must have fallen asleep somewhere along the ride because when I woke up, I was in the middle of a city and we were all boarding off of the bus. I gathered my belongings, fixed the position of my sunglasses (it was a cloudy day, too), and walked off of the bus. Once my feet hit the ground, I realized…where the hell was I going?<p>

A car drove by the sidewalk and hit a deep puddle. The water was sent in a huge wave that splashed over all of us. As everybody started to yell curses at the driver, I preoccupied myself by thinking, "This is some freaking cold water. I'm glad I took a shower…."

I decided to walk northwards to find shelter from the relentless rain. As I walked, I passed by an abandoned building that reminded me a lot of the old mental hospital back in Silent Hill. With a curiosity, I walked to it, where it would keep me dry for the time being.

The doors creaked loudly as I pushed them open. When they closed, the room was almost pitch black. I rummaged around my bag for a flashlight and when I found one, I turned it on. I shone it over the room and walked forward. A few rats in the corner of the room scurried away from me and I could hear the roof leaking in the background. The place smelled of mold, old wood, and dust.

I found a sign and it said, "Hope House Orphanage." What kind of city would let an orphanage become a ruin?

I explored the dark building a bit and found an empty room, where I decided to hole up in the corner and tuck my knees into my chest. God, the air was freezing. I wished that I had control over the weather, because then it would be warm every single freaking day.

I took out the book that I took…stole, rather (I broke my promise, didn't I?)…and opened it up. I looked over the foreign words and flipped through each page to find something that might give me a hint of how to read it.

A heard a few footsteps and I flipped my flashlight off. I was still as I listened to the sound of the pattering rain on the rooftop that made loud cling-clang noises. Then the door to my room opened and the light from outside flooded in.

"What are you doing here?" a voice said and came closer. It was followed by two other figures and I stood up to greet them. Unfortunately, before I could even say anything to them, a girl said, "What are you doing here on our turf?"

Figures. I had probably just wandered onto some gang's territory. I didn't say anything as they advanced closer to me, but in my mind, I thought to myself that if they attacked me, they'd never see sunshine ever again.

They stopped in front of me and surveyed me. "You dye your hair?" one of them asked.

I sighed. "This is my natural color."

She put her hands on her hips and slowly nodded her head up and down. "Riiight," she said. "Sorry, but if you wanna stay on our turf, you need to pay up."

_Pay up_? I needed all the money that I had.

"What's in the bag?" she asked and gestured to my backpack.

I gave her a blank look. She was a little shorter than me, but was probably around my age. She appeared to be Hispanic and had a few scars on her face. She also smelled like smoke and some other unrecognizable substance. She had two men behind her who tried to appear intimidating to me by crossing their arms and buffing their chests out, but quite frankly, it really made me want to laugh them. I almost did, but then I remembered that they appeared to be a gang (or part of one) and probably carried weapons such as guns or knives.

I didn't want to get a skirmish with anything and I decided to try to talk my way out of the situation. "Look, sorry if I'm not suppose to be here, but I just wanted to get out of the rain. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to leave now." I tried to walk by them, but the girl- who was apparently the leader -blocked my path and pushed me back.

"All the money you got," she said and held out her hand to me.

Instinctively, I wordlessly took out ten dollars from my bag and handed it to her. It's not like she knew how much money I had.

She took the money and inspected, then said, "I changed my mind. Now give me your whole bag."

"Hey man, this'll all I got," I said.

"You homeless?"

"Yeah."

"Too bad, now give me your bag or Tony and Mike'll beat the hell out of you," she threatened.

We all heard a loud scraping noise; the very same one that I had grown to love. When they heard it become louder, they gave each other strange looks and turned towards the door. The noise stopped, but I almost jumped when I saw Pyramid's sword shoot through the closed doors and impale one of the boys.

I took a few steps back to avoid any blood that may have been sprayed and watched the other two retreat while they yelled out curses.

Pyramid opened the door and walked through. He lifted his blade and thrust it downward towards the man. He missed, but then swung the sharpened end to the left and got his target.

In a panic, the girl tried to dart past him, but he reached out to her with his left arm and caught her. He lifted her up in the air, ignored her incessant screaming, and for a moment I thought that he was going to skin her alive like how he had done to so many other people that I once knew. Instead, he changed what was probably going to be his plan when the girl managed to kick him in the gut and grabbed onto his helmet. She clawed, scratched, and bit his arm in a fit of rage and panic.

"Kill me, I DARE you!" she bellowed and kicked him again several times.

Pyramid wheeled around in an attempt to get her off of him (her grip on the edge of his helmet was rather strong) but it didn't work. He let out an animalistic noise, clutched onto her back, and tried to pull her off. He stumbled forward as he did so and she kicked him again. This time, he reeled forward and loosened her enough to throw her off.

She landed on the ground and reached to her belt, where she pulled out a handgun. As a reaction, I attacked her from behind and got the gun out of her hand. I lifted it and shot her four times in the chest. She fell down hard on the ground with a scream and died relatively quickly.

"Bitch," I muttered, then looked at Pyramid. He bent down and retrieved his sword. He grunted twice and turned towards me. Though she had kicked him pretty hard, he wasn't hurt and didn't even appeared to have had a confrontation in the first place. "Thanks," I said, then looked down at the gun. I decided to put in my bag.

Pyramid turned his head towards the door and he grabbed onto the handle, then slammed it shut. He grunted, pointed to a crumbled hole in the wall, and kept the door closed as people on the other side attempted to open it.

I ran to the wall just as the floor began to transform into a liquid-like, gooey substance and engulf the carcasses of the three apparent gang members. I squeezed through and came out into another empty room with an opening that lead outside. As I slipped out of the room, Pyramid must have disappeared into the wall and left because I heard the rusty doors swing open, followed by the sound of boots on the ground.

Outside on the edge of the building two stories above the ground, the wind was tremendously strong and the rain felt like pebbles hitting my body. I found a niche in between two windows and curled myself into a ball to fit into it. It protected me from the wind and rain and I was out of people's view, so I was safe. Thanks to my placement, I could also hear the gang members speak.

"I swear I heard two effing gunshots in here," a young-sounding man said. "Where's Carly and Mike? And Tony?"

"Well, they ain't here," another person said. "Check the rest of the building. I swear, if those Falcons stepped onto _our_ territory, I'm going to personally shoot _all_ of them to death." They began to walk away and his voice became more faint. "First they jumped Laura, then they chased Ralph, and now they've gone onto our turf. Stupid bastard sons-a-"

_Falcons?_ They must have been a rival gang or something. I couldn't hear them anymore and sighed, shivering in the rain. The ledge of the outcropping was about two feet away and I could see the cars roll by and splash through the puddles as they drove along the road. There were a few people outside who ran through the rain with umbrellas as they tried to flag down a taxi. For some reason, I wanted to laugh at them. I don't know why.

I considered going into Underground, but where I have come out after I left? Back here in this building? I could only emerge from it in places that I'd been to before, and there was no way that I was going to go back to Silent Hill. If I did go to Underground, the best and probably only place that I'd be safest going to would be Henry's apartment. I wouldn't try the subway because of the vast amounts of people that are usually there.

I sighed again to myself, tucked my knees into my chest, and decided to wait out the storm.

* * *

><p><strong>DON'T YOU JUST LOVE PYRAMID HEAD? :D I'm not sure why, but I'm pretty much obsessed with him XD<strong>


	19. Chapter 18

Finally, I found some peace and rest…in a coffee shop. The sky was still drizzling a bit of rain and the Italian-styled shop was warm and smelt wonderful. I had never drunken coffee before and I wasn't going to spend my money on any of it, but the aroma was amazing. There was a small band in the corner near a window with a man playing an accordion and another playing some strange type of drum that he held in his hand and beat with a soft-ended drumstick. The man playing the accordion had a small choir of three men behind him and they all had beautiful voices as they sang their songs sung in a foreign language that I guessed to be German. People were smiling and laughing and applauded the band as they finished their song. I decided to clap as well and found a smile form on my face.

It was nice in here…welcoming, too.

A man dressed in a business suit spotted me and must have thought that I looked lonely since I was sitting by myself. He walked over to me and sat down in the booth across from me. He said in his deep, thick, German accent, "You do not look like you are from around here."

I smiled at him, but I knew to be cautious. "I'm not, actually. I'm from Ashfield."

The man gave a warm smile and a hearty laugh. "Ahh, do you know my cousin, Frank? He lives der with his wife."

"I don't know any Franks," I said, "but this band over here's pretty good. Do they have a name?"

"Ahh, they tend to call demselves da '_Kleine Alte Männer'. _Dey are German!"

"Sounds German," I said. "What does it mean in English?"

"It means 'Little Old Men.' Dey are a humble group, and a talented one too," he said and gave another large smile. "Here, you do not look like you are enjoying yourself as much as you should be simply because you have no coffee. Here, let me buy a cup," he said before I could say anything back. "Der white vanilla chocolate is da best."

A few minutes later, I had my first cup of coffee. The white vanilla chocolate was sweet, but the man, named Emmerich, allowed me to sip a bit of his coffee.

It was the most bitter, disgusting, foul-tasting thing I had ever tasted in my entire life. How it is that people enjoy something as strong-tasting as that is beyond me. I figured that it was an acquired taste.

An hour had passed and Emmerich remained just as friendly to me. He introduced me to the band and a few of the other people that he knew that just happened to be there in the coffee shop with us. Everybody here was kind to me, and I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming happiness about it. I was relieved and extremely glad to know that there were more people in the world like Henry; people who are willing to make an effort to make another person feel happy and welcomed without asking anything in return.

As I sat and listened to the band, Emmerich said to me, "So, I'm afraid that I did not ask you sooner; what brings you here to this city?"

"Me?" I said, then quickly came up with an excuse. "I just thought that I would come and visit. I like to come and look around little places that I've never been to before."

"And dat, my friend, is da best way for someone to learn of other people," he said. "Judge us by seeing what we do. You like us?"

"Course I do," I smiled again. "Though I wonder…what about those people who judge others simply because of how they look? Or how other people treat them?"

Emmerich paused for a moment and glanced at the table before he said, "Sometimes, der are people in dis world dat make mistakes. It is only human, and if dey judge somebody wrong- which we all do -den dat is der mistake, and we can hope dat dey learn from it."

"What if it was something to the extreme? Like a bunch of people are trying to kill somebody because they're different?"

"And sometimes dis world has people dat are afraid," he said. "I dink dat it is natural; for some of us, if we are afraid of something, then we try to get rid of it. For other, if we are afraid of something, we try to learn from it, only we do it more cautiously. I personally prefer da latter." He smiled at me. "Der are also people who are simply blind and can't see anything else. Ya know?"

I nodded my head and looked at the table. Were the people after me really blind? After what Emmerich told me, I realized that they were afraid of me. Well…maybe not _me_ personally, but they were afraid of what I could do. I could go to alternate dimensions and they were scared that I might be able to do something to them that would harm them. They were afraid of the monsters there (and the worlds themselves) even though, as far as I knew, they had never even seen it in the first place. It was weird.

What would I do about them? It slowly dawned on me that I couldn't keep on escaping things, unless if I wanted to be running for my whole life. I knew that Pyramid wouldn't agree with that, let alone myself. What should I do? Kill them? I couldn't.

But I've already killed two people.

I rested my head on my fist and thought. Maybe I'd just go and ask Pyramid about what to do. He always knew, even if his speech could be choppy at times. We- or I -needed to do something about this whole mess before it killed me or my friends, the monsters.

* * *

><p>I found a corner in the alleyway and looked over the pages of the book again. Beside me, a wall-hanging, bluish-colored figure was resting next to me. Half of him was fused into the wall so that just his head, arms, and chest were out. His head had no face, but instead, there was a large mouth with jagged teeth. I had named him Blue a couple years ago. He always appeared to clear away dead bodies of people and got rid of any evidence at a murder scene, except when Pyramid wanted the remains to stay. He looked at the book with me and often ran his blue, lanky fingers over the text. He would make a strange noise, almost as if his airways were being restricted in some manner while he groaned.<p>

I wished that I could decipher them. I looked at Blue and asked, "Do you think that Henry has a translation somewhere?"

Blue groaned and apparently shrugged his boney shoulders.

"Do you think I should go back there?"

He nodded his head up and down.

I closed the book, put it in my bag, and stood up. Blue seemed to have read my mind and disappeared back into the wall while I put my hands up to it.

All what I could think about as I practically shot out of the bathroom wall was, God, I hope Henry's not in the bathroom. Please, if he's taking a shower, have him slip, fall, and go unconscious. Then I'll tie him to his bed and gag him so that he can't make any noises, I'll search his apartment for anything helpful, then I'll let him go and apologize.

Would I have actually tied him up and gagged him? No, of course not, but the thought of it seemed useful at the time. Okay, maybe I'd tie him up…but wouldn't be scream for help? Maybe-

The tendrils of black ooze vaporized into the air and I was on my knees in the bathroom. I was still for a while and listened for any noises. The room was pitch black (his bathroom had no windows), but a sliver of light came through the cracks in the door. There appeared to be a dim light on the other side. I couldn't hear anything though; no television, no movement, no nothing.

As I stood up and cautiously creaked open the door, I reminded myself that I was technically breaking and entering into someone's residence. Wonderful.

My heart started to beat against my ribcage and I could feel it pulsating my entire body. The nervousness finally caught up to me, settled itself in my stomach, and made everything inside of me fall to my feet…again. I straightened my posture, took in a breath, and remembered to be confident. If Henry was awake and he saw me snooping around his place, I'd find some way out of it. If he was asleep and then woke up, then I could…no, I didn't want to hurt him. He seemed too gentle of a spirit.

I wondered if anybody understood how damn risky and gutsy this whole idea was.

I tiptoed to the living room and was thankful for the nightlight that he kept on in the kitchen. Apparently he didn't like total darkness, which was great to my advantage. I read over all of the titles of the books, but none of them offered anything that was even remotely related to a cult. Then I found a book labeled "Silent Hill" and I took it out.

I should have deduced that it was a photography book, because that's exactly what it was and didn't help me one bit. I put it back and sighed.

When I turned around, Blue's head and half of his chest was sticking out of the wall. At first I thought that he was going to warn me that someone was coming, but instead, he pointed to Henry's bedroom and I looked in its direction. I recited a couple very explicit words in my head and looked back at Blue with a pair of eyes that pleaded for there to be some other option. But I didn't know Henry's schedule, so I didn't know when he was home or not. He was a photographer; he might've even worked from home, for all I knew.

Without much of a choice, I crept to Henry's room. I paused at the door and my feet felt like lead weighted them down to the floor and my pounding heart told me to forget this whole thing. What if there wasn't anything that could translate the book? But Blue pointed to this room, so there must've been something.

As I silently opened his door, Blue turned off the nightlight in the kitchen. I didn't even think to turn that off…what if Henry was photosensitive during sleep? Whatever, that didn't matter much now. I had a monster helping me raid somebody's home…I had turned into such a villain, hadn't I?

There was enough light in the room for me to see, so I could make out Henry's sleeping form on the bed. Something didn't look right, though. I squinted a bit and saw that he slept in a ball with his knees tucked in tightly to his chest. No wonder the bed looked like it had a ball on it.

I snuck to his desk and couldn't take my eyes off of him for fear that he might wake up at any moment. I was careful when I opened up a drawer and I held my breath. All what he was doing was breathing. He didn't even snore. He was asleep, I was quiet, it was dark, I could make it seem like he was dreaming if he woke up.

I took out a small, thin book and opened it. It was too dark for me to read. Was it a checkbook? God, that's not what I wanted. I put it back, but as I closed the drawer, the wood squeaked a bit and I froze.

Henry moved a bit and I quickly looked in his direction. He rolled over and sighed, apparently not hearing me while he unconsciously stretched out his tight form.

I let out my breath and moved on to the next drawer. There was a sketchbook- he was a fellow artist! -and a few loose papers, but nothing else. I made sure that the wood didn't squeak, but my fear was realized and something (I honestly don't know what, since I was quieter than a mouse) woke Henry up.

At first he sat up and looked my direction, but when he asked, "Is somebody there?" I just about freaked. He reached over to his bedside table and turned the light on, but Blue had already appeared out of the wall behind him and covered his mouth with one hand while restraining him with the other.

Henry panicked and tried to get free, but Blue kept him in his place. Since the room was now flooded with light, I could see everything clearly and I approached him. He squirmed and incessantly tried to wriggle free, but Blue wasn't going to let go of him.

"Shh, _sshh_," I said when I got beside him, rushing for him to be quiet. He had a wide-eyed expression and went still, though his chest was rising up and down with a panicked breathing cycle. "We won't hurt you," I said. "We need your help. Erm…I need your help, rather. I took a book from you a couple days ago- Blue, stop being so harsh on him -and I need a translation."

Henry glanced at the hand covering his mouth before up to me.

"Blue, let him speak," I said.

The moment Blue let go, Henry tried to yell for help, so my friend quieted him once again.

"Henry, listen; I _won't_ hurt you," I repeated. "I'm not a murderer. Well, actually…you know what? Never mind. They were lying. Look, just…look at Blue, the one holding you. Does he look human to you? No, he's not, in fact he's from some completely other place, so _please_ just help us."

Blue slowly let go of Henry and the man calmed himself a bit. "What are you doing here? How the hell did you get in here?" He craned his neck around to look at Blue and was startled by him. He rushed to the other end of the bed and said a loud exclamation of, "What the hell?"

"Shh," I repeated and moved to the bedroom door to stop him from trying to escape. Oh my god, I really was a criminal…and a repeat-offender, too. Murder, theft, breaking and entering…what more was to come?

I fished the book out of my backpack and approached him. He, in return, backed away, but regardless of that, I opened the book and showed him the writings. "This," I said, "is what we need help with. We need to know what it says. Do you have anything or anybody that could help us decode it?"

I could tell that he was scared. Of course; who wouldn't be? There was half of a human-looking monster hanging out of his bedroom wall with a complete stranger that broke into his house. Why _wouldn't_ he have been afraid?

It was strange, the way how he was taking in breaths to say something to only stop himself and release it while he glanced from Blue to me and back. I guessed that he was speechless. Another strange thing was that at the same time, I felt a compelling urge to tell him about Pyramid. I didn't know. Was it because Blue was here? Or was Pyramid telling me to do something for him?

Whatever the reason, after a few moments passed, I said, "Well, I…um…really do need your help. Seven years ago, I met this guy in an abandoned hospital. We made a pact together; he'd protect me from bullies and whatnot if I gave him friendship. He's been keeping his promise for this whole time, and there're these places…other worlds and alternate dimension…that I can go to." I noticed the crazed look that he gave me but I continued to go on regardless. "Now, seven years later, there's a bunch of people who know about this place, and they want to kill me because they know that I can go there. Pyramid- the guy I met -and my friends can't seem to get near some of them for some reason, and I have a feeling that the book I took from you can help us. So please, Mr. Henry, can you help us?"

He looked at Blue before he muttered out, "What do you want me to do?"

I let out a sigh of relief. "You said that you took the book from your dad, right?"

He nodded.

"Maybe we should go there."

* * *

><p><strong>THE RETURN OF HENRY! I think Pyramid Head likes him :D <strong>

**I hope that Tetsu isn't becoming one of those stupid mary-sue people, because she isn't a mary-sue _ I shall give her knives and guns! Hopefully that'll eliminate all of the silliness that she probably has XD**

**Oh wait! You'll all get to see her make one of her hunters die an elaborate and exotic death involving an endless abyss, a shoe, and a staircase :D That should fix things }:)**


	20. Chapter 19

I was pretty sure that I had won back Henry's trust for the moment. I mean, I was sitting in the passenger seat of his car…I hoped that said something, but then again, he had seen Blue, so he was probably scared into helping us. Although, he did stop giving me odd looks and was much more relaxed around me. I wondered if he actually realized that I had told the truth or if he was in denial, like how pretty much everybody else on this cursed planet would be.

His parents lived outside of Ashfield on a lake house (I didn't want to ask it was Toluca Lake or not) about thirty minutes away. He was silent while I watched the scenery pass, as I usually did. Then he said, "I guess I should tell you that my dad and I don't really have the best relationship."

I looked over at him. Did he have a bad father too? "Same here," I said. "What went down between you two?"

"He's a doctor and he's always wanted me to get into medicine. Unfortunately for him, I was always interested in taking pictures and became a photographer instead."

"That's it?" I asked in slight disbelief. "You've a bad relationship…because of _that_?"

"Crazy, right? Every time he tried to get me interested in in the profession, I'd always want to go for a hike or something. I never wanted to be a doctor. What about you?"

"Me? My mom divorced my dad a long time ago, but you're lucky compared to what I have. My dad's abusive." I saw him glance at me for a mere moment before he focused his attention back on the road.

"Abusive? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"I did, but they didn't do anything."

"Not even the police?"

"No," I replied. "My dad's horrible. He killed my dog, too."

"But, that's…horrible."

I shrugged. "That's just him. Anyway, I don't have to worry about him anymore. I'm never going to see him again, even if he's sick and dying. I hope he gets hit by a bus."

Another couple moments of silence passed until Henry voiced, "Could you explain to me a little more about what's going on? You mentioned something about a Pyramid?"

And so, for the next fifteen minutes, I was the one talking without any voices telling me to keep it a secret from him.

* * *

><p>I expected the house to be a small, quaint thing on the water, but instead, it was a massive, three-story mansion. It had a beautiful piece of property with expertly-trimmed hedges and a boathouse in the back dock with an amazing view of the water. The gardens were also kept up pretty well.<p>

"Your parents _live_ here?" I said in slight disbelief. "You people are rich."

Henry didn't seem to know what to say as we stepped onto the front porch and he rang the doorbell. While we waited for them to answer, I adjusted the bandana that covered my hair and asked, "Henry, does this alright? My bandana, I mean?"

"Umm…it looks fine," he replied just as somebody answered the door.

There stood a short, graying woman wearing brown pants, high-heeled shoes, and a black shirt with a few accessories that included earrings, a necklace, and a few rings. I was jealous of the jewelry. She also had a lot of perfume and her face brightened immediately when she saw Henry. In fact, she didn't even notice me as she threw her arms around her son and started to say embarrassing, motherly things such as, "Oh, my baby! It's been so long! How are you doing, pumpkin?"

I guess it's true that mothers can really embarrass their kin in front of others without even realizing it. Poor Henry…it probably didn't help that I started to laugh. Either way, she noticed me when I chuckled and released Henry from her bear-hug.

"And who might you be?" she asked, a large smile still on her face.

"I'm Te-" I decided to lie my name again "-rra, Terra Jenkins." We shook hands together.

"Well come on in, you two," she said and lead us inside.

I gave Henry a funny look and he rolled his eyes. He muttered something, but it wasn't anything serious.

Inside, the house was even more spectacular and than it was on the exterior. There were beautiful hardwood floors and lodge-styled furniture with chandeliers made of deer antlers. The walls were wooden with fancy-looking, antique tapestries. I rose my eyebrows and whistled. "This is some place your folks have," I mumbled to Henry as I surveyed the spacious house.

Two older people- grandparents, perhaps? One of them had a walker and another a cane -ambled out of a sunroom and smiled sweetly when they saw us. Henry's mom introduced me to them. "Terra, this is Papa Ben and Gramgram. Oh, I'm sure Henry's told you about them."

I saw a slightly panicked look in Henry's eyes and I decided to cover for him. "Yeah, he says that you two are really sweet."

Okay, it was a lame lie, but at least it was something. I wanted to stay on Henry's good side. Besides, if he gave me food once, he'd probably give it to me again if I was nice to him. That thought made me feel vaguely like a dog….

"Henry!" Papa Ben said. "You've finally got yourself a girl!"

I had a "What the hell?" look on my face and Henry was about to say something before his grandfather continued.

"Fourteen years…no, seventeen I've been waitin' for the day to see my grandson bring back a girl! You know, Henry _never_ had a girl in high school, but ahh! Now here stands a-"

"Grandpa," Henry said, the beginnings of a blush becoming evident on his face. "She's not-"

At the same time, his grandmother said, "See, Mariam? I told you that he'd bring home a babe sometime. Lordy Hen, she's a fox!"

The blush was gone from Henry's face and was now replaced with by no color at all. He tried to say something, but he couldn't find his voice. I wondered if he was the type of person who, in certain situations, always had his voice fail on him and instead stood there in peril.

"Uh, thanks…" I said in an uncertain voice. "And he's not my boyfriend." I gestured to the ghostly statue next to me. "We're just friends."

"That's what they all say," Papa Ben said.

"What? No! It's true, we're just friends. Henry's a photographer and I'm an artist and he gave me permission to photomanipulate some of his pictures for a few of my digital artworks."

Henry let out his breath that he probably didn't even realize he was holding in the first place.

We heard footsteps come down the stairs and Henry's father, a tall and lanky but old-looking man, came to greet us. He had a smile on his face initially, but when he saw Henry, it was wiped away. I immediately felt the tension between the two of them and I realized that I probably needed to save Henry again since his voice was still out of commission. "You must be Mr. Townshend," I said politely and bowed slightly (don't ask why I bowed). "Henry and I came here to ask you about something, if we may…?"

"Of course," he said and came the entire way down the stairs. "What do you need help with?"

"We wanted to ask you about this," I replied and showed him the book that I was holding in my hand.

His brow furrowed and he said, "Gibberish. I remember this book from decades ago, but I never took the time to figure out what it says."

"Do you happen to have a translation somewhere? Or a decoder?"

He rubbed his stubbly jaw and thought. "Maybe up in the attic, but no one's been up there in years."

"Do we have permission to look?"

"Of course," he said and glanced at Henry. I didn't think that his posture could get any more stiff than it already was, but when his father looked at him, somehow he managed to become even more rigidity.

The tension didn't even go away when his mother beamed in her apparently natural bright-and-cheery mood, "Oh, you two need to stay for dinner! Or at least a little longer after you're done upstairs."

I smiled at her and replied, "We'll see." I grabbed onto Henry's arm to make him move and said, "Come on, Statue."

As we walked up the stairs, his mother called out, "Oh, and Henry! I'm still waiting for a grandchild!"

The comment made me choke on air (I didn't think that was even possible) and I nearly tripped up the stairs. At the same time, Henry's small voice squeaked out a one-worded syllable. The embarrassment was practically radiating off of him and he noticed the indescribable look on my face.

"I'm a virgin and I'm staying that way for a long time," I whispered.

"Me too," Henry agreed.

* * *

><p>As we ascended the ladder into the attic, I said, "Soo…you've never had a girlfriend before?"<p>

His voice was still trying to recover as he mumbled a, "No…."

"That's alright. I've never had a boyfriend before. I think I scared them away. Anyway, let's…" when I saw the massive amounts of messiness piled high with junk and old items, I said, "…ah hell."

Henry poked his head up and had the same expression as I did.

I stood up and said, "Well, gotta start somewhere." I walked over to a pile of wooden tables and brushed the dust off. It plumed into the air and I tried to swipe it away, but I only made it worse and I was suffocating in dust.

I was glad that we came early, because it took us three hours to find a book that seemed to be associated with mine. At this point, I was covered in dust (so was Henry) and tired of the cobwebs and spiders that constantly pestered me by getting caught up in my hair. There were probably bats up here, too….

"Hey, I think I found something," I said and pulled a book out of a pile of junk. "Looks like an old book." I opened up the pages and saw a bunch of strange symbols, but underneath, there was a translation. It said "BIBLE OF THE HOLY MOTHER" in huge, black letters. I opened the first page and saw a decoder. Upon flipping through more of it, I found some pages with English written on them.

I compared it with the book that I had and said, "I'm pretty sure that this is a translation. It looks like it's the same thing." I flipped through a bunch of the pages and stopped when I saw a picture of Pyramid. I started to read.

"_And he said unto God, Let there be not Your Heaven and let there be not Your Happiness, for I am born of the Truth and I will manifest Myself in the Mind of those Tortured._

_And God said unto Him, Thou art banished fro My Kingdom forever after."_

'The Shadowed One,'_ many call him. The Fallen Angel of God, Vengeance, Pyramid Head…he is always there on our (the Follower's) heels, threatening to consume us all and bring forth the Apocalypse if we do not serve our God with almighty devotion, for he has fallen from the Light and serves the true darkness of Hell."_

"What…the hell?" I said. How is it that this book mentioned Pyramid Head, which was pretty close to the same name that I had given him? And what was it talking about?

"_Ever since our founding, he has threatened our pact with God; the One who protects us from His bloody wrath and promises us prosperity. Only through our Faith can The Shadowed One be kept at bay. Once He did nearly destroy us a mere century ago. A Follower did not know of his own son making a pact with The Shadowed One (he named him Pyramid Head, thus the fourth surname was given) and he brought forth a bloody war between us. We have seen that nightmarish world, and we have been to Hell and back. Our Faith drove them away. Our Faith repelled the Pyramid Head. Only through our Faith can we keep the Eternal Monster at bay._

_We will never allow it to happen again. That is why any Follower of the Order is required to closely monitor their kin's and their neighbor's lives to be wary, for The Shadowed One is bound to cling onto His eternal hatred and will strike us at any moment._

_We will keep our Faith of the utmost importance, and in the name of God, so it shall be._

I paused. It just said that Pyramid had known another person before me, and that boy named him Pyramid Head. Did Pyramid offer him the same deal? What happened to the kid? Did he die? How long has Pyramid been around? Did Pyramid still want to destroy the cult? Why didn't he tell me? I would help him.

"Henry, I'm going to have to leave for a moment," I said and stood up.

"Why?"

"I just found something rather…weird. I'll be ba-"

"Henry, Terra!" Mariam called from downstairs. "You two okay up there?"

"We're fine, Mom," Henry said.

"Okay. Hey, would you two like to help with dinner? We're making a mini-Thanksgiving."

Henry looked at me and I shrugged my shoulders. Traveling to Pyramid's world and back to mine still took a lot of energy out of me, so if I left and returned, they'd all be wondering why I'd be so exhausted suddenly. "Sure, we'll help," I said and held the two books to my chest. "We'll be down in a second."

"Are you sure?" Henry asked. "You seemed to be pretty urgent all of a sudden."

"Maybe I'll explain it later."

* * *

><p>My stomach was happy with the fact that I was eating again. Not only was I eating, but the food was amazing. Mrs. Townshend was quite the cook.<p>

As for Mr. Townshend, he didn't want to help with the cooking at all. It was obvious that he didn't want to be around Henry, but Mrs. Townshend insisted that they be close together for once. So, in Henry's silent defense, I acted an a dielectric of the two by sitting between them.

"-so Ron White or Jon White or…something like that, whatever his name is…he said, 'Well, they wondered if it was dangerous for women to be space while they had their period,' so then he said, 'Well of course they're dangerous; those psycho-bitches can fly!' Mrs. Townshend continued with the ongoing conversation of various stand-up comedians. It would have been funnier if she had managed to come up with them on her own, but I laughed, nonetheless.

"-so Henry, what about you? How's the photography going?" the grandmother asked.

"Pretty good," Henry replied in his quiet voice.

"Must be getting a name for yourself if you have other artists wanting to use your pictures," his grandfather said and winked at me. "You two should really date each other. I mean, just look at them! They're beautiful next to each other. Besides, I want a great-grandchild sometime soon, Henry. Your internal clock is ticking, you know."

I spat out my drink and Henry tried to shrink back into his chair.

I said, "Sorry sir, but we're not interested in each other like that-"

"You really could be wed-"

"I wouldn't mind you as my daughter-in-law-"

"Henry's a good man-"

"Isn't he just handsome?"

"Oh freaking god," I muttered as everyone started to talk at once. I slammed my hand to my face and thought to myself, How could people like this spawn such a quiet and well-tempered gentleman? How could they not realize the rudeness and embarrassment? "He's not going to be my boyfriend."

"She's not going to be my girlfriend," Henry said immediately after me. "No offense, Terra."

"None taken."

"Been waiting fifteen years or so, Hen," his grandfather…being ever-so persistent…said. "Quit being so shy."

Henry's voice failed him again and he looked to me for help.

"I don't think we want to talk about this anymore," I said.

"But even-"

"Please, please stop talking, Papa Ben…" I said. "I know that all of you are just trying to be nice, but please, for the love of GOD…let's change the subject."

"Alright," one of them said and I finally got them to cease their previously incessant chatter.

* * *

><p>Just out of generosity, I decided to help everyone clean the dishes. When Mr. Townshend came and said to Henry (very, very seriously) that he wanted to talk to him, I became concerned. At first I thought that maybe it was nothing, but then I heard someone's voice gradually getting louder and louder. Eventually, we could all hear it and we were silent. His father would yell something, and then there would be a pause. Henry just didn't yell.<p>

"Excuse me," I said and walked away from the rest of the family. I found Henry and peaked in through the crack in the door.

"You could've become a doctor, or a scientist, or a lawyer with all that money I earned for you! You could've saved lives; you could have been great! But no, instead you decided to take pictures for a living, and not only that, but you came home with a bandana-wearing, rude, nosy girl who's probably a prostitute. You're a pathetic abomination for a son. I can't believe you're even part of this family."

My heart grew cold. Henry was leaning against a desk and the passive man was woefully taking every verbal hit and blow. I have no clue how this conversation even started, but his own father had him in tears and Henry was crying out quiet, incomprehensible words between the yelling fits his father had. Every time he wiped away a distressed tear, two would replace it.

And secondly, what the hell have I done? They gave us permission to go into the attic. And what was wrong with my bandana? It looked pretty. And I'm not a prostitute; I'd never even consider being one.

If there was any time to ensure Henry's complete trust and permanently win him to be on my side, now would've been the time.

Enraged, I stormed into the room (rather loudly, too) and automatically made myself look intimidating. According to Pyramid, I had a knack for making myself look mean simply by glaring at somebody, and I knew that it worked because Mr. Townshend backed away and held up his hands as if he was surrendering to someone. But of course, I had become pretty furious and I knew that the way how my body tensed up made it seem as if I was about to punch him. Man, I really just wanted to knock his teeth out but I knew better.

"You freaking lay off," I hissed and said a threat to him afterwards with graphic details that probably disturbed him. He was about to say something, but I found my voice letting out a ring of curses and words that I thought I'd never use and he backed down.

With him out of the way, I grabbed onto Henry and pulled him out of the room. As we passed everybody else, whom had all come up the stairs to see what the commotion was, I said with my pissed-off visage still worn, "Thank you for you hospitality, but we'll be going now."

"Terra, wait a second," Mr. Townshend said and came out of the room.

I interrupted him by saying, "Earlier today you said that you all wanted a grandchild. Sorry to say, but I would _never_ allow my child to ever be around people who treat their own son like that. Good luck on ever seeing us again."

With that, I stormed us out of the house and decided to drive back to Ashfield with my new book and saddened friend.

* * *

><p><strong>TETSU LEARNED SOMETHING FROM PYRAMID HEAD! Daaw, isn't she sweet? Taking after Pyramid Head and all...<strong>

**lol sorry about there being no Pyramid Head XD The next chapter won't be centered around Henry and Tetsu. Instead, it'll involve her, Pyramid Head, the Other World, and a few nasty people that we all hate *coughcough the Followers coughcough***


	21. Chapter 20

"If you're ever in trouble, you can always come back here Tetsu," Henry said as I left.

I smiled and said, "Thanks." I slung my bag over my shoulder, pressed my hands up to his bathroom wall, and disappeared.

I was greeted with my room and Pyramid standing there, as if he was expecting me. I collected myself, stood up, and smiled to him. "You probably know what I want to ask you about."

He grunted and his shoulders sagged.

I glanced at my doll sitting on my bed and I took out my book, the one with the English written in it.

"Lies," Pyramid said. "They're all lies."

"That's what I figured, but I wanted to ask you about the boy-"

"Jack."

"-Jack? What happened to you and him?" He was quiet and didn't want to speak, but I pressed on further. "Pyramid, what happened to him? Did he die?"

He nodded his head and approached me. "Watch," he said and held his hand up to my head. "Watch, watch…watch…."

I didn't know what he was doing, but I couldn't move for a while. My vision faded in and out and I found myself apparently looking at a screen, almost as if I was watching a movie that paralyzed me.

I saw a young boy, probably not even nine years old, crying and sitting in a corner with blood profusely bleeding from him. Then the image flickered and Pyramid approached him. Jack said something to him and Pyramid held his hand out to the boy. Jack took it, but soon afterwards, he tried to wriggle free and screamed. Rust and blood ran down the walls and the image flickered out. I figured that must have been when Pyramid made the promise to him.

For a while, it showed happy images; Jack playing with the monsters that were foreign to me, running around Pyramid in circles with a large smile on his face, and tugging on Pyramid's arm, apparently pleading for something like a little kid. There were images of Jack snuggling next to Pyramid with a teddy bear and scenes of Pyramid taking care of the young boy, almost like an older brother or a father.

Then it changed to show Jack hiding in a closet. I could hear the conversation of a few adults dressed in black in the room.

"That child is full of lies!" a lady yelled. "He is to be sacrificed to the Holy Mother, and in God's name, so it shall be."

"It'll be done, Cynthia," a man said.

After that, it showed many images of Pyramid defending his boy. A little while after, they were in the basement of the church that I was previously in and Jack was tied to a stake with wood around him as well as many members of the Cult. There was something that kept Pyramid away from Jack, almost like a force-field from a science fiction movie. He dropped his sword and repeatedly beat his fists and clawed at what was keeping him at bay.

Jack screamed out Pyramid Head's name several times and pleaded for help. He panicked and was desperately trying to get free and had tears streaming down his young face.

"This boy has dealt with the Devil and denies the Holy Mother's true Way. For this, God, we sacrifice the blood and flesh of this child to you and ask that this boy will be rebirthed anew! Let the fiend" -the lady pointed to Pyramid Head -"see the beauty of exorcising evil, and forever banish him to his home; Hell!"

A solemn-looking man grabbed a torch and lit Jack on fire. His screams were loud and shrill.

Pyramid Head fell to his knees and stopped trying to break through. The images flickered again and it showed Pyramid alone, still on the ground, clutching the dead and burnt corpse of Jack. His skin was blackened and flaked off in large pieces and Pyramid Head held him tightly to his body. Strange, animalistic noises were coming from him and he lifted his head to the sky to let out an earsplitting roar.

The scene switched and I saw Pyramid Head standing in front of a giant fan with red and orange lights glowing behind him. It looked like an intense heat was coming out of it. He was furious and angry and wanted to kill everybody in the Cult, but their blind conviction repelled him from entering their church. He was trapped in his hatred and his sorrow was overflowing from him. The grief and the anger brought him hell, and I could feel it for a short while.

Pyramid released his grip on my head and I took in a gasp of air. I felt a little shaky-legged, but I was steady after a moment. I was also silent for a long time until I said, "They killed Jack?"

Pyramid nodded his head.

"And your real name is Pyramid Head?"

He nodded again.

"Why…I mean, how did I name you Pyramid then?"

He shrugged his shoulders and slowly shook his head from side to side.

"We'll get them," I promised. "If they're going to do human sacrifices, then we need to stop them. God…they're going to try to do that again. If they've done it once, they'll keep on doing it."

"Kill them," he said. "Kill them all…kill…kill."

"I need to get back to Silent Hill, then," I said. "You guys are going to help with the ones that you can go near, right?"

"Yes."

"What about the ones that you can't get near to?"

He pointed to me.

"I'll have to do it myself, huh?" I let out a long sigh. This was gradually becoming more and more stressful.

"Your father," Pyramid Head said. "Kill…he'll kill you."

I gave him a quizzical look. "I thought he wasn't part of the Cult."

"No, kill him. Bad…death…kill…he agreed to have you murdered. Kill, kill…."

"Okay."

* * *

><p>It was dark inside of my house. It was midnight and my dad was in his bedroom. It still smelled like alcohol and there were beer bottles scattered all over the floor. The trash was rotting in the kitchen and there was a terrible scent coming from the bathroom.<p>

Our neighbors weren't very close, so I didn't need to be quiet. In my hand was a knife and nothing else.

I took in a deep breath and opened my dad's bedroom door. This was the first time that I had ever consciously killed somebody not for the reason of self-defense. With my teacher, it was my subconscious and panic; a survival instinct. With the gang member, I had also panicked and I was protecting Pyramid Head and myself. Those were immediate problems and there was no other way of dealing with them. But this time, my father was asleep and wasn't presently threatening me. But I knew that he would try to hurt me again- he has my entire life -and I couldn't let that happen. I thought that it was more merciful to kill him while he didn't know it was coming, but there was a part of my heart that wanted him to hurt. Part of me wanted him to know how angry I was. Part of me longed to give him an agonizing death. The disgusting alcohol and tobacco fueled my hatred and I wanted so desperately to stab, to cut, to kill, and butcher….

I walked into the room. I looked at him for a moment and imagined what I must of looked like, with the moonlight filtering in through the windows, turning me into a mere, blue silhouette against a dark background. I approached him and rose my knife. My heart was tugging itself; hit his throat and kill him instantly? Or stab him in the stomach and make him bleed to death….

The floorboard squeaked and my dad woke up. He saw me but was confused, still in the half-dream daze. "Tetsu?" he said.

"I always despised you," I said. "You disgusting, filthy pig. I don't give a damn about you. Goodbye." With a swift movement, I slashed at my father.

He let out a yelp and rolled off of the bed away from me. I didn't even dash after him as I slowly walked around the bed towards my target. I was menacing and I knew it. I hated this man.

"Tetsu, Tetsu!" he said while he held an arm to his bleeding stomach. "What're you doing?"

"I don't even feel enough for you to be sorry." I rose my knife again and without hesitation, I brought it down upon my father.

He screeched and tried to kick me away, but I only pulled my arm back and stabbed him three more times. My blood was rushing and I felt a wave of uncontrollable madness as I relentlessly stabbed and hacked and slashed. Blood sprayed onto the walls from the severed arteries and veins and got in my face, drenching my chest. As the blood drained out of him and got onto me, his screams died away. Even when they stopped, I continued to use the knife. I was convinced I hadn't killed him yet. He's still alive, he's still alive, he's still alive…he's dead.

I stopped myself and looked at my creation. It wasn't art that I had tried to make; I saved that for the paints and pencils. A corpse was my goal. A bloodied, dead carcass. I was standing above him and there was blood everywhere. A smile had mysteriously crept onto my face and I realized it. It disappeared quickly and I felt like an animal. Was I…me, Tetsu Morris…really like this?

Maybe I was just in shock at what I had done, but I backed away from him and continued to stare for a while. Through that time, all of the anger and the sadness that the horrific feelings that my father had inflicted upon me rushed out each time I had brought my arm down. All of it was drained out of me. The hatred was gone. The madness was gone. He was no longer a filthy pig, but instead just a dead animal who had his life cycle shortened. He was simple, just like every other living thing. We're born, we live, and we die, then return to the earth in some way so that future things may live. It wasn't anything special.

It was no big deal killing him, right?

Any emotion drained from my face and I stood up straight. I put my knife away. I had done my job, now just let it rest in peace and let me get on with my other tasks.

Now I feel like a monster.

* * *

><p>I was in the coffee shop again. There was a radio on and I was listening.<p>

"In other news, the body of forty-six year old Vector Morris was found murdered in his bedroom just last night after strange noises were heard from the small house in Silent Hill."

Whoops. I guess I let him be a little too loud.

"The man was stabbed a total of thirty times, and the approximate time of death was around midnight, according to police officials. As of right now, there are no suspected individuals, but further investigations will ensue. People are advised to be cautious around suspicious individuals since the murderer is still believed to be in the Silent Hill, Brahms, and Ashfield area."

I didn't look suspicious. I was still wearing my bandana, but people mistook me for being Islamic and left me alone. I also wore a cheap pair of sunglasses- different than the ones that I wore in the subway -and altered my clothing. Police were nearby, I knew that, so I was careful to keep my disguise looking authentic.

It apparently worked, except for one man that I had met before. When I heard his voice, I smiled. "My friend!" Emmerich said and sat down next to me. "Tell me, how are you doing?"

"Pretty good," I lied. "Yourself?"

"Ahh, I am wonderful! But have you heard da news? Somebody was murdered just last night."

"Yeah, I heard that on the radio."

"Awful ding, really, being killed like that. Poor man probably didn't even see it coming."

We were quiet for a while. "Why do you think people do that, Emmerich? Kill others?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Simply fallen from da light," he replied. "Dat's not someding dat I really have an answer for, but I suppose dat some people simply do not know any better, you know? If dey're angry at someone, den dey apparently cannot control der own emotions. It is not someding dat I really speculate about, you know? But I'm just left to wonder…why do dat?"

"What if they're a bad person and deserve it?"

"Even den, it still seems like der could be uder medods. What do you dink?"

I shrugged my shoulders like him. "I don't know. I mean, it could have been one of my own friends killed."

"Perhaps dey kill for reminders of what we have. You know, to cherish the little things more? I certainly view it as dat."

"Like having dinner with a friend?"

"Or talking in a coffee shop." His face lit up with his characteristically warm smile. He patted me on the back and said, "Just don't forget dat, my friend.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry if some of you guys have difficulty reading what Emmerich says. I'm just trying to make it more realistic by giving him an accent, and I know that some of you guys are international readers and not native English-speakers, so sorry if it's a little difficult sometimes ^^; I just know that if I tried to read something in French (I'm learning how to speak French) and they put accents on it that are foreign to me, I probably wouldn't be able to read it O.O<strong>

**BUUUTT…I'm not fluent as of yet, so…yeah XD**

…**I like foreign languages :3**


	22. Chapter 21

I knocked on Henry's door. It was nine o'clock at night, and I knew that, but my concealed clothes were very bloody and I desperately needed a shower. I had covered myself up to prevent anybody from seeing the blood, but there was nobody wandering the hallways of the apartment building so I was pretty safe. Besides, I was sure that Henry had some stain-remover.

I was also really tired.

Henry opened the door and looked a little surprised at first. I didn't want to look at him straight in the eyes after what I had done, so I stared down at his feet instead. I could see that he was dressed in his pajamas and smelled a little bit like shampoo. He was probably like me; taking showers at night before I went to bed.

"Can I come in?" I meekly asked.

"Of course," he replied and opened the door a little wider.

Once he closed it, I voiced, "Can you do a favor for me?"

"Um, sure…what do you want me to do?"

I took off my coat and he was slightly shocked at the blood on my clothes. "Could you wash my clothes if you have a washing machine?"

"My god, are you alright?" he said but, though he was concerned, his facial expressions didn't show it nearly to the magnitude that other people do so. It must have been because he wasn't the kind of person who hung out with other people. Besides, he seemed to feel awkward during conversations rather often.

"I'm fine," I said. "Could I take a shower?"

He nodded at me but kept his eyes on my bloodied attire. "What happened to you?"

"It's…mm…." I didn't want to tell him. My brain nagged at me and told me not to, but regardless of that, I squeaked out, "It's not my blood. But I had to…I really did…."

"That man on the news…did you murder him?"

I finally looked up at him and I nodded my head slightly. "I had to."

Henry looked around for a moment, almost as if the walls of the apartment would give him more of a clarification.

"If I didn't, he would have killed me, Henry. He even agreed to have the Cult murder me. You remember. I told you in the car."

"That still makes you a murderer."

"I know." I bit my bottom lip. "I'm not happy about it, either. Trust me, if there was another way, I'd have chosen that instead, but I really don't have any other choice, Henry. I don't know if you can understand that, but if you can't, then please try. There's really nothing else that I can do. They've done things like this before to somebody else and they even took away someone very important to Pyramid, and they do _human_ sacrifices, and they'll continue doing so if we- as in me and the monsters -don't do something about it. I'd love to go to the police, but they're involved in this too, and I know they're not on my side. Not by a long shot. So, I guess that for the moment I need to ignore the law. I really don't want to." I turned away and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. "I'm really sorry, Henry."

Five minutes later, I found myself in the shower. I had balled my bloody clothes together and put them on the countertop where I made a promise to myself to clean it afterwards. I really didn't want to wear out my welcome. Henry was nice to me. Besides, I was in his home. I had to be respectful. That's what all the characters in the books that I've read have done.

After the shower, I finally felt completely clean and smelt like vanilla. Because of my short hair, I could just scrub a towel over my head like a guy and dry it off that way. Then I looked at myself in the mirror and sighed. That overwhelming feeling I had last night with my father was so foreign and strange and horrible. I wasn't a monster, was I? I didn't go around killing people. I only killed them if they wanted to kill me. But that madness that I had…it wasn't even me. It was as if I was a completely other person. A completely different Tetsu. It disturbed me. I didn't like it.

But I had seen that room in Underground, the one with the nine holes. I went to it often and I had seen the one that I'd never, ever go back to. The one that's whatever my subconscious creates. It was horrific. I had seen a lot of disturbing things, but the things that were there didn't nearly compare to a simple Rupture or Hanging Figure. I think that even the monsters were scared of it. If that's what my subconscious does- or has, rather -then I didn't want to know what me, my normal self, would become if I went completely crazy and I was trying to survive. It caused me to kill Mrs. Thacker, but that wasn't a very gruesome death. I didn't want to think that I would be able to do with a knife, a rope, and a few of my enemies.

Maybe I really was a monster.

I walked out of the bathroom and I heard a soft humming noise, then I recognized it to be a microwave. I walked into the main room with my dirty clothes and Henry, standing in the kitchen, turned around to me. "I hope you've got stain remover," I said in a slightly jokingly way and gave a weak smile.

He grinned a bit but I'm pretty sure that it was fake. He showed me where the washer was and he put in a ton of stain-remover.

"I reheated a bit of dinner for you," Henry said.

"Uhh…wait, what? You didn't have to do that."

"I gave you food last time."

I laughed. Now _that_ was being hospitable.

* * *

><p>All what I could hear was the soft tick-tock of the clock in the dark room. We had gone to bed and I fell asleep for about six hours before I woke up, hugging the pillow to my chest like how I usually did. I never really knew why. Even when I was younger and slept with Pyramid Head- should I call him that or simply Pyramid? -I always woke up to find myself hugging him. Yes, I still slept with him like how I did when I was ten, but it was like two cats sleeping next to each other; there was nothing else that really happened other than the occasional twitch of a hand or foot. I did that with Spike, too, but he usually kicked me in his sleep.<p>

I still got that warm feeling whenever I snuggled up next to Pyramid Head. It's always so unexplainable. Just the sheer amount of comfort and safety would always allow me to sleep soundly next to him. Maybe that was because I always slept in the nook of his arm. I still remember the first time I had done that back in my room, and when I woke up, Pyramid Head was sleeping. I had no clue that he even needed sleep, but it was kind of funny. I would try to shake him awake but he could only wake up on his own, apparently. It always made me calm, thinking about him just laying there with his head turned to the side as he usually did, breathing deeply and doing nothing else. He also had a heartbeat.

I was half-awake when I heard a strange noise. I thought that it was nothing and I was already in that half-dream state, but when I felt lanky fingers glide over my arm in a brisk pace, I woke up completely. It was dark, but I could see Blue protruding out of the wall. I rolled onto my back and whispered with a sigh, "What's wrong?"

Blue opened his mouth and let out a low gurgle. He always had foul breath.

I got a little concerned and I sat upright. "What?" I asked again. "Is someone coming?"

Blue gently wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into the wall. I wondered what he was doing, but I obviously didn't fight back. I could never fight against Blue. He was a sweetheart.

I didn't know why, but he brought me into Underground and dropped me off in the room with Pyramid Head's large metal-contraption-instrument thingy (the thing that we play songs on with his sword). Pyramid Head was there without his blade.

I stood up and greeted him. "Is something wrong? I didn't know that someone could just pull me into here."

He was holding something in his hand and he approached me. It looked a bit like a syringe needle, but these alternate dimensions didn't have that, right? Maybe other than the hospital. Besides, why would he have one, anyways? It looked like it was filled with a black fluid.

I never liked needles and my stomach told me to back away. I took a few steps back and allowed myself to look nervous. "What are you doing?"

Pyramid didn't say anything, but he stopped a few paces away from me and held out his empty hand to me. I didn't want to take it. "What's going on?" I asked.

"Power," he replied. "The serum will help…hospital world…."

He must have been talking about the alternate-dimension hospital, but I didn't know what he meant.

"Relax. It won't hurt." He reached for me and grabbed onto my arm, but I squirmed and tried to get away. For the first time in seven years, he was actually scaring me and I was pretty sure that he knew it.

He held me with a firm grip and I couldn't get away. I screamed at him to let me go, but he injected the black serum through my arm and I stilled. I repeated to myself, There's a reason for this, I know it. He can't speak that well at times and I'm sure that he'll explain all of this to me later.

He let go of me and I backed up to the wall. I held my hand up to where I was injected and my knees became a little weak. "What'd you do?" I asked. "What was that?"

"For you. I'm sorry for hurting you, but it's for you. Don't be scared. I love you."

I'm not quite sure what happened after that, but I think that I got a little dizzy and fell asleep again.

* * *

><p>My eyes shot open and the room was flooded with by light. I was in Henry's apartment again, still sleeping on the couch. I heard Henry cooking something in the kitchen and I looked over at him. He was wearing black pants and a white shirt with a red tie. Was he working today? I didn't think that he'd need to dress so fancily for being a photographer. Maybe he was meeting someone important.<p>

I sat up, but I immediately felt sick to my stomach. My head was pounding and my arm was sore. My stomach told me to rush to the bathroom and I listened, startling Henry in the process.

I found myself dry-heaving into the toilet and Henry was by my side, asking if I was okay. I wanted to say "Of course I'm not okay." but I wasn't going to be rude.

I felt horrible. So what happened at four in the morning was real and wasn't just a dream. What the heck had Pyramid just done to me, and why? I suddenly started to feel very hot and I wasn't sure why. My temperature was quickly increasing and I was sweating profusely. When I looked up and saw my arms, they were extremely pale. I asked Henry to leave and he did so, closing the door behind himself out of courtesy.

Henry had to leave for work and I stayed in the bathroom for about an hour until the pain started to become unbearable. I fell sideways onto the floor as my body felt like it was on fire. Not even the cool tiles helped, so I slipped out of my clothes. That didn't do much either. I started to dry-heave again and I shook violently while I remained over the toilet. I felt so sick….

I tried to stand up but my legs gave way and I fell again with a loud 'thump.' My hearing started to fade in and out and I realized that I could only hear my heartbeat and my loud, agonized breathing. I flipped onto my underside and balled my hands into fists. My head was hurting. When I touched it with my hand, I felt something sticky and warm. I looked at my pale hand and saw a black substance. It started to drip down my face and pool on the ground.

I didn't know what was happening to me. I managed to stagger my way up onto my feet and I used the countertop to balance myself. I looked into the mirror and I froze. My hair was pitch black and my skin had no color to it at all. It looked like black blood was bleeding from my head and my eyes were completely black. There were two black tear marks running down my face from the corner of my eyes and I reached my hand up to touch the mirror. The blackness streamed out of me and looked like rivers flowing down my snowy skin. Whenever it dripped off of me, it evaporated into the air and disappeared.

I was scared. I didn't want to look at myself in the mirror and instead got back down on the floor. I couldn't explain how sick I felt.

* * *

><p>I stayed in there for the whole day. The blackness went away and my skin returned to its normal color, but I still felt outrageously ill. I didn't even want to move, not even when Henry returned.<p>

"Tetsu? Are you still here?" I heard him call. He opened up the bathroom door and saw me laying on the floor with my hand held to my head. I had my clothes back on now. "Are you okay? Have you been here the entire time?"

I mumbled a 'yes.'

"Well…how sick are you?"

"Very, but I'm feeling a little better now." I sat up straight and took in a deep breath. "I think Pyramid did something to me this morning. Blue pulled me into Underground and Pyramid injected me with something. I don't know what."

"Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"No, no, I'm fine…just a little sick. Whatever he gave me will probably help me later on." I put my arm to my stomach and cringed a bit as it tightened. Then I felt a wave of relief and I relaxed a little. The tightness would probably return again.

Man, that was an agonizing day.

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><p><strong>You'll all get to see what Tetsu can turn into now pretty soon }:D<strong>


	23. Chapter 22

**Sorry it took so long for me to update. I had a wee bit of a writer's block, but I managed to break it last night :)**

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><p>I was sick again today, but only for about thirty minutes. It wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday, so I decided to return to Silent Hill. I had my gun in my bag and I was planning on taking out another Cult member. I knew that the policeman (the one who's arm I had broken) was probably still in Alchemilla Hospital. If he was there, I'd just need to see if I could get any information from him, shoot him, and leave before anybody saw.<p>

I remembered having to go to the hospital once and the rooms were made for only one patient so that it was private. If he was there, then I just needed to close the door and do what I needed to do.

I was walking down the sidewalk to the building when a person caught my eye. I glanced at him for a mere second, but I saw something his eye…a look, to be precise. I didn't know what it was. Recognition? Surprise? Fear? It was the priest of the church who walked by me. He was a member of the Cult. He was there in the church when those lunatics wanted to kill me. Maybe he didn't recognize me, but I turned on my heels and walked after him at a safe distance.

He didn't glance back at me as he turned down a narrow street and cut through the alleyways. I wondered if he was meeting up with someone. With that thought in mind, it'd be a bad idea for me to stay on the streets, so I parkoured up to the roof of a building. From atop, I kept an eye on him. He glanced back several times but never saw me up on the rooftops of the conjoined buildings.

I guess that I was just lucky that day, because he approached a group of four other people. One of them was a somewhat old-looking lady with three middle-aged guy around her. They were all dressed in black except for that one lady, whom was wearing a blue dress and a pearl necklace with a silver cross on it.

"How is our friend doing?" the lady asked.

"He's alright, Christabella. Our Tetsu ruptured his spleen when she had punched him, but the operation was successful and he will be alright. The matter at hand is what we need to do about her."

"I know that she is responsible for all of those deaths," a pale, lanky, black-haired man said. "Since she just murdered her own father, I'm positive that she will begin hunting all of us."

"She has already started. She has sparked another war," Christabella said. "A war between God and the Devil. You've all read the scriptures; need I remind you that last time this happened, our now-deceased leader kept the monsters at bay? That is what we must do. This Tetsu is a monster, a creature from that hell. She is in league with The Shadowed One- Pyramid Head -and will attempt to destroy us all, therefore we must destroy her first."

"Christabella, she hides, though," the same black-haired man said. "Those creatures protect her."

"We must be prepared, then. Gather guns and other weapons. Always wear your crosses and read the Book every night. Pray that she won't find you, and pray that she won't be able to approach you like how the Pyramid Head cannot. And, since she is searching for us, then we should know very well where she will be."

Christabella…she must have been the leader, or one of the leaders. I reached into my bag and pulled out my gun, but at the same time, someone grabbed my arm. When I looked behind myself, a fist met my face (that really hurt) and I nearly fell off of the building. There must have been somebody keeping watch to make sure that nobody was coming, and I failed to see him.

"Christabella!" he yelled, and we struggled for a moment. I kicked him off and tried to push him off of the building, but he caught onto me and wrapped an arm around a chimney to prevent me from knocking him over. We threw several punches, but then he grabbed onto me and I fell off of the building. I caught myself on the balcony to break my fall, then let go and landed safely on the ground. Damn bastard got my gun.

They seemed surprised at first, but I was pretty damn furious at them. I heard the sound of a four-legged animal running and somebody screamed. I looked up and saw Spike jumping off of the roof with a man's corpse in his mouth. He landed on all fours on the ground and threw the body to the side. The huge dog's tensed muscles made him seem enormously large and he bared his longs, razor-sharp teeth. Long strands of sticky spit were dangling from his jowls and his brows were furrowed with anger.

Spike leapt forward with his jaws opened as wide as they could have gone and aimed to bite off the head of the black-haired man, but he dodged the ferocious animal. One of them started to attack me witch a knife, but I was good as dodging and I hit him every time I swung my fists and kicked.

Christabella, in a panic, grabbed onto her crossed and yelled out something in a foreign language.

Spike let out a shrill cry and put his tail between his legs. He ran away from Christabella and I felt my head beginning to hurt. The man I was fighting reeled over when I kicked him, but then Christabella yelled something again and I felt an explosive pain in the side of my head. Spike ran in my direction and I heard a voice in my head yell out 'run.'

I followed Spike and he leapt to one of the walls. I quickly went after him and we both disappeared.

The moment my arm shot out of the wall to push myself through, Spike gently bit onto it and pulled me out.

I stood up and staggered away from the wall. Nothing happened for a few minutes and I looked at Spike as I steadied my breathing. His ears swiveled backwards and he whimpered once, but then he lifted his spiked tail and looked to the wall again. I noticed him squint at it for a moment, almost as if he was trying to see something on it. He cocked his head and pointed with his paw towards the wall.

It looked like something else was coming through. Nobody else could come through, could they? I didn't pull them in, and neither did Spike. Unless if…that thing that Christabella said…it hurt me and Spike, so would it also allow them to travel here? Why would they want to come here? This place was reserved for only the monsters and myself.

What I guessed was correct and one after the other fell onto the floor. Spike was panicking and I didn't know why until my head began to hurt to an outrageous point. I turned around and ran away, closing the door behind me.

Outside of whatever room I was in, the horrible feeling went away. Also, the machinery was working extremely hard and was louder than it usually was; a telltale sign that something uninvited was here.

Somebody burst through the closed door and Spike ran away, urging me to follow him. I did as he wanted me to and fled. Why not stand and fight, I thought. Why did Christabella hurt our heads? Or rather, how could she?

Years of pushing myself to run faster allowed me to keep up with Spike and, glancing behind us from time to time, we escaped the four people.

Spike and I stopped running and the dog turned around, panting heavily while he made sure that we truly lost our chasers. He gave me a confused look, almost as if he was asking, "How did they do that? Even I thought that they couldn't come through."

I glanced at a small, square hole in the rusty, metal wall and I said, "Come on, let's go. There's a staircase behind here." I crawled in through the wall and Spike followed.

It wasn't any ordinary staircase. It was spiraled and narrow. The walls were only three feet apart and the clearance of the floor to the ceiling was four feet. I was used to being in cramped, tight places.

I heard something and I froze. I looked behind at Spike and put a finger up to my mouth, signaling for him to be quiet. I could hear voices.

"Where are you!" A voice screamed, as well as the sound of loud metal clanging against something. "Where are you, demon!" It was faint and a long ways away, so I decided that we could continue to move forward.

Once we reached the top of the staircase, there was enough room for me to get on my knees. The exit was blocked by a metal screen and I banged softly on it. "Mannequin, are you there?" I whispered. "Can you open the vent?"

I saw the two pairs of long legs walk like a spider towards us. I backed up and Mannequin kicked the screen off. We crawled out of the tight space and Mannequin straightened her spider-like posture to be taller than me.

"We've got a problem," I immediately said. "We got a few uh…church members here. Every time we get near them, our heads start to hurt. Well…mine does; I'm not sure about yours, Spike."

Spike nodded his head, then pawed at Mannequin's foot. They had a strange way of communicating to each other, and I'm sure that it was telepathy, because they were definitely having a conversation together without having to use voices. Mannequin couldn't talk because she was a pair of two legs attached together at a torso, so there was no head, and Spike was…well…a dog. They seemed to have reached some sort of agreement and Mannequin quickly left the room.

"What?" I asked. "What's she doing?"

Spike whimpered once and started to leave. I glanced at the hidden staircase for a moment and I walked outside to where all of the machines were.

Pyramid Head was standing there and Spike was licking his hand.

"No one ever told me that they could come here," I said.

"They can't," he replied.

I gave him a confused look.

"You and Spike accidentally pulled them in."

I held back a curse and looked down the hallway.

"Kill them," Pyramid Head said. "Be cruel. Don't hold back."

"Can you go near them?"

"Not Christabella. Be smart and clever."

"Can you help?"

"Not much."

"Christ," I said. "Alright. Can you do whatever it is that you can? I'll take Spike with me."

"Okay."

Both of us left in separate directions.

I would find one of them and separate that person from the rest, granted they were smart enough to stick together. Maybe Mannequin told the other monsters to work together and separate them so that it'd be easier for us to fight them…or maybe just me, I really didn't know who could and couldn't go near them. Christabella was apparently the main person that they couldn't get near. However, I was within a relatively close proximity to her in the alleyways. The only problem was that it hurt me.

* * *

><p>I waited for a long time, almost walking around aimlessly to find one of them. They were looking for me and I was looking for them, yet we couldn't find each other. One of the main advantages that Spike and I had was the fact that we knew our way around this place. We could walk through it backwards and blindfolded and not bump into anything, and I knew all of the secret passageways and hidden places. The intruders didn't.<p>

I heard a man screaming and I followed the voice. Beneath the grated floor I was walking on, I could see a man running beneath me in a panic. A Sniffer was chasing him. They were odd-looking. They appeared to be human-shaped lumps of flesh with elongated faces that sniffed the ground as they crawled like a crab on their undersides. Their skin was always covered in blood and mud, and they were fast when they moved.

I followed them from above and saw the Sniffer finally catch up with the man. He yelped as the Sniffer's mouth bit onto his leg and dragged him across the floor as he gnawed viciously at him. Soon after, bloody vines started to snake their way towards him across the floor. He screamed and thrashed as the vines covered his body, trapping and strapping him to the ground where he couldn't move and was eventually consumed by the things until he turned into one heap of blood and muscle. That was one of them gone.

The Sniffer looked up at me after pulling his head out of the matt of bloody, moving vines. I smiled at him and waved once. He rose the stump where his hand should have been and waved back before he crawled off and I moved on to find someone else.

* * *

><p>He was running away from me. He didn't know where he was going, but he turned into a room and slammed the door shut on me. I quickly followed him and saw him crawling through a small passageway in the side of the room that lead to a ledge dropping down to a hallway that was notorious to me for what it held.<p>

It always have a good four feet of stagnant blood in it, almost as if it was a pool.

He fell off of the ledge in his hurry and dropped the quick six feet into the blood-filled hallway. I jumped after him and landed safely, making sure to keep my eyes and mouth closed shut as the liquid swirled around me.

It was dark in this hallway. The blood looked black and I could barely see a thing, therefore my target couldn't see anything as well.

I only kept my eyes out of the blood to conceal myself in the darkness. I could hear him splashing loudly with panicked breaths and he eventually found a wall. He stilled and lifted a hand to his mouth, when he realized that he wasn't standing in water. He quickly tried to make his way back to the ledge, but it was too far up and he couldn't climb up the sheer wall.

I slowly started to approach him and I stopped when he turned my way. "Are you here, Tetsu?" he said and started to feel his way across the damp wall to a possible route out.

I took in a breath and submerged under the blood, where I used the raised nails of the floorboards to pull myself towards the man. I could see his feet, and when I was close enough, I jumped up out of the blood and grabbed onto him. He screamed and thrashed, but I threw him over my shoulder and slammed his head into the wall. He wasn't dead after that, so I grabbed onto him again and repeated the move. He caught onto my arm and struggled with me for a moment before kicking me away.

I could taste the metallic liquid as both of us fell into the blood that was beginning to clot because of our wild movements. He stood up first and fled down the dark hallway.

"I'm gonna get you," I said and listened to my voice echo. He was running into a dead end. "Can't run forever, you know. I'm gonna get you, gonna get you…."

I heard him clawing at something and, in the faint light, saw him trapped against the bars that prevented further passage down the hallway. He turned around to face me and had a death grip on the bars. The look of fear on his face was immense and he slid down them, staring at me the entire time.

I glared down at him, almost unaware of the smile on my face. "Gonna get you, gonna get you…."

He begged something, but I can't remember what it was. All I knew was that I mercilessly beat him over and over and over again, holding him underneath the blood to drown him as I broke his bones and crushed his skull. Finally I snapped his neck in half and I could see what I had done.

I had mutilated him. He didn't even have a jaw anymore. Where did it go? Did I really rip it off? Why didn't I find that disturbing, or frightening?

I dragged him back to the opening where the ledge was and I saw a single leg dangle down, offering a foot for me to take. I grabbed onto Mannequin's ankle and she pulled up me and my victim.

I didn't even realize how hard I was breathing, or how calm I had become when I saw what I had done. Where were the man's eyes? His jaw? His…neck? I didn't need to do that…I didn't need to destroy his body in such a manner.

Yet I couldn't control it.

I grabbed onto the man's ankles and dragged him out of the room. Everything smelled like blood. My arms were covered in it, my hair was dripping wet in it, my clothes were soaked, it was drying around my face and becoming sticky….

Dragging him with one arm was easy. I made my way to a room that I remember Pyramid Head showing me a long time ago. Half of the room was covered with a dirty mirror and I laid the body near a corner where a sink was. The same bloody vines slid out of the faucet and started to crawl out of the mirror towards the body, where they engulfed the man. They pulled the body into the mirror and I heard a voice in my head say, "Thank you."

I walked out of the room where Spike was. I knelt down to him and he started to lick the blood off of my face. I thanked him and said, "Just two more, maybe one."

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><p>Wormy showed me the way to the next man, but he warned me that he was aggressive and was armed with a steel pipe. The monsters couldn't get near that black-haired man, so it was up to me to get him.<p>

I was above him, crawling around on the vertical, metal mesh nettings that stretched up to the high ceiling in order to follow him. He had no clue that I was hunting him. Then again, they were all rather clueless. They didn't know where to go.

I was being patient to wait and see where he was going, that way I could be able to figure out what to do with him. I gradually got closer and closer to him until he walked into a dead end, then I dropped down from above and quite literally pounced on him. I wrapped my hands around his head to snap his neck, but he grabbed onto my arm and threw me over his shoulder. I landed on the ground and he rose his arm to strike my head with his metal pipe, but I rolled out of the way and scrambled onto my feet. He swung it again like a baseball bat and I dodged, but he was persistent. He yelled and relentlessly tried to beat me, and every time I took a couple steps back, he would chase after me.

An idea came into my mind and I turned on my heels to run away. As I expected, he chased after me.

We ran for a long time and whenever he lost sight of me, I would stop and wait for him, only to sprint away again without notice. This area of Underground was getting hot and the light had a reddish glow to it. The machines were loud and I could hear screaming.

I lured him to one of the metal staircases that seemed to have descended down forever into the quiet, abysmal darkness. After a while, the staircase flattened out into a platform and I sped up as I saw the gap between the metal. I jumped over the chasm and landed safely on the other side, listening to my chaser attempt to do the same.

His foot slipped off and he fell, catching himself with his arms and now clinging onto dear life to the metal. I stopped in my tracks and turned around to him.

He tried to pull himself up, but he couldn't. He kicked as if he was trying to get a hold of something, but the metal pillars that somehow held up this staircase in the middle of nothingness stretched down so far that they disappeared into the darkness.

"Tetsu!" he said and held out a hand to me, a pleading look in his eyes. "Tetsu, please don't let me fall!"

I slowly walked closer to him, aware of my blank face. Help him? He was trying to kill me.

"Please…God will forgive you." He attempted to pull himself up again, but failed. "Please don't let me fall."

For a moment I stood there, looming over him, staring him down, until I felt a wave of meanness wash over me again. "My god is different," I said quietly before I rose my foot and crushed his hand, the grips on the sole of my shoe biting into the flesh. He screamed and continued to hang on, so I kicked his fingers and they all snapped. He let go with his broken hand and dangled with his only good one. He plead to me one more time before I stomped and kicked him off.

His yelling turned into a shrill shriek as he let go and was engulfed by the blackness. He disappeared, flailing his arms and legs until everything became peacefully quiet again.

Everything was so silent now, except for the sound of my walking feet when I decided to turn away and left the chasm. I ran my hand along the rusty railing and started to hum a song to myself as I planned on going back to the main part of Underground.

Just one more left.

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><p><strong>Wow, Tetsu's mean…<strong>

**Well, that was the strange death involving Tetsu's shoe, staircase, and an endless abyss… Not as elaborate as I thought it'd be, but at least it involved all three items! :D**

**Oh yeah, and Christabella is the priest/church/cult lady from the Silent Hill movie. I chose her because the actress who plays her is excellent (seriously, she's an amazing actress) and I want to stab her character with a spoon :X If you've ever seen the movie, then you'll understand why.**

**P.S. I wonder where Spike went? Did any of you realize that he just disappeared all of a sudden? XD Haha, my bad…I forgot about him…. **


	24. Chapter 23

The wall men- the type of monster that Blue was -periodically jumped out of the walls to signal to me where Christabella was. I followed their directions and I could tell that the lady was running away from me, but Underground had many dead ends and was overall one huge, confusing labyrinth full of monsters that couldn't get near her because of some sort of strange power.

Christabella ran into the room that housed Hanging Figure…oh, the panic that leapt to my racing heart. Hanging Figure was confined to that room and I rushed in after Christabella to help my friend, because I knew that she could hurt her.

Upon slamming the door open, Hanging Figure let out an animalistic scream and the human-shaped, fleshy monster willed her cage to ascend to the ceiling where Christabella couldn't harm her.

Christabella turned around to me. She had blood splattered on her face and chest and was clutching her cross tightly. I scowled at her.

"The other three are dead," I said. "Just take the easy way out and leave us alone. That's all we want."

Christabella smiled and said, "Dear child, you foolish, misguided thing…look around you. What do you call this place?"

"That's none of your business." I started to walk towards her. "You want to get rid of us, therefore you leave us no other choice but to eliminate you and your cult."

"I'm not the only one, you know. Even with my death, the cult will live on."

"Yeah, try saying that to Pyramid Head. You people killed Jack. That boy was his friend."

"That boy consorted with the devil-"

"That _boy_ only wanted a friend, and he got it. So did I, and I won't be taken away from Pyramid Head that easily. Why don't you just leave us alone?"

"The Cult was formed many hundreds of years ago, dear Tetsu. We made a pact with our god, which would ensure our prosperity and our right of passage to Heaven."

"Didn't seem to work too well, seeing as to how you're here right now."

"However, there would have to be a compromise. If we did not expel the evil from this world, then this hellish dimension would be brought down upon us. The rewards that we have cherished greatly outweigh the threat, and so we have continued to prosper. But, that boy, Jack- son of a Follower -decided to break the pact with our god and instead made one with The Shadowed One, Pyramid Head…the devil."

"I'm pretty sure that he's not Satan, Christie. I never believed in all that religious crap. The truth is that you've _killed_ innocent people and you're going to continue doing so, and we don't want that to happen. Any god that demands blood is pretty much a jackass in my opinion. I was founded by Pyramid Head because I needed help, and I wanted to be with somebody. Seven years I've been at peace with this place" -I gestured to all around us- "and it's _my_ heaven, and Pyramid Head is _my_ god. Not yours. Now that you're in our home and since you want to kill us, we're going to fight back, whether you want us to or not."

"We will not be nearly destroyed a second time," she said.

"Nearly? Ma'am, you _will_ be destroyed, because you all need to know that what you've been doing _cannot_ be tolerated and will not be dealt with any longer."

"Try saying that when the power of God is upon you, and His Judgment will eradicate you from the world."

"I'd like to ask which one, because I belong to eleven." I started to run towards her, but she mumbled something I was flung backwards by some sort of invisible force. When I opened my eyes, I felt a sharp pain on the side of my head and I screamed. Her voice started to chant and she slowly became louder and louder.

I gripped onto my head and I rolled onto my underside. I screamed louder and when I felt the side of my face, there was a sticky black substance that began to crack my skin and ooze out of my body. It dribbled down my arms and it practically consumed me in its blackness, causing sharp pains to riddle my body. I tried to scream, but it was plastered to me and held my arms to my chest. I felt like I was suffocating in saran wrap as I writhed around and felt something shift.

It let me take in a breath and I took in an agonized gulp of air. Christabella couldn't have been doing this to me, because when I opened my eyes, I saw that my arms were long blades, almost like a razor-sharp, black version of a praying mantis's forelegs.

When I lolled my head over to Christabella, I could see a visage of absolute horror on her face. I stood up straight and all of my muscles tensed as I leaned forward on my long mantis-arms and they clinked against the metal as I walked with them. I couldn't walk straight, and that was probably because I wasn't used to this sudden transformation of my body. I didn't know what I looked like, but everything that was human about me drained for a temporary moment and I became a vicious, hissing animal, intent on killing this living thing dressed in blue.

I opened my mouth and a shrill hiss was emitted. I started to run forward to her, but she chanted something and I flew back again. It took me three times to realize that I couldn't get any closer to her, so I laid low on the ground and crawled around her in a circle like a spider. I clung to the darkness of the room and lunged forward at her before she could say something else in that irritating, foreign language. I knocked her to the ground, but she rolled me over, kicking me with her legs. I felt an explosive pain from her and I screamed out the most horrific, animalistic, blood-curdling noise that I could have ever done. It caused me to jump back to the walls of the room, where I used my new arms to climb up to the ceiling where Christabella wouldn't be able to see me.

"Come out, demon!" she yelled. "You truly are one of them! God's Light will dispel you!"

I kicked off of the ceiling and flew towards her, but she dodged me. I swung the serrated edge of my mantis-arm at her and I nearly took her head off. She staggered backwards and whispered something to her cross as she sprinted to the wall.

Something hit me with an outrageous amount of force and I was thrown backwards again. I recovered quickly, feeling the black liquid flow freely from my mouth and cuts that it formed on my skin. I ran with my mantis-arms towards the wall as she pushed herself into it, but right before I could get to her, she disappeared.

I slammed into the wall, screeching and hissing violently as I viciously clawed at the wall like some sort of animal, thinking that I might be able to get her back and kill her. Then I stopped, seeing that I was standing on my knees and doing nothing but cutting the wall.

I heard a noise behind me and I instinctively turned to it. I saw Pyramid Head standing in the doorway and Hanging Figure descended from her hiding place. With my shaky legs, I stood up and staggered towards him. They felt so weak. Instead, I used my arms and their long blades to move towards him. Everything in me was weakening and I tripped into Pyramid Head, who instantly caught me and held me to his chest. Slowly, my mind began to return to normal.

Pyramid Head gently grabbed onto the back of my head and I felt something flowing out of me. The black substance left my arms and gave me back my original ones, as well as giving me back my normal skin color. I didn't even realize that it had turned as pale as parchment. Then I looked myself over again and realized that I was still soaked head-to-toe with blood.

I looked up at Pyramid Head. I squeaked out to him, "What happened?"

"You used your power."

I sank into him when my feet gave way and he picked me up bridal-style. I rested my head against him and closed my eyes when I went unconscious.

* * *

><p>I woke up in my room and took in a gasp of air. I shot bolt upright and looked around my surroundings before I calmed down. I glanced at the red-haired doll on the bedside table and I grabbed it. I held it to my chest when I saw Pyramid Head standing near me, almost as if he was waiting for me to wake up. He probably was, anyway. He held out his hand to me and I took it, allowing him to pull me to my feet.<p>

"What…the hell…." I said. "What the hell…did I? What was…."

Pyramid grunted once.

"So that's what you gave me, huh? An ability?"

"You can turn into one of us now."

"Can I control it?"

"Of course."

We were both silent for a while as I stroked my doll's hair. "Christabella got away."

"I know."

"Where did she go?"

Pyramid Head shrugged his shoulders. "You frightened her."

"Like hell, all of us did."

"You should go to Henry."

I looked at him and asked, "Why?"

"Look in a mirror."

My face went blank at his statement and I found a smile form on my face. The dried blood cracked at the movement and I said sarcastically, "Gee, thanks. Way to make me feel pretty."

Pyramid Head shrugged his shoulders again. I gave him a hug and a kiss before I left.

* * *

><p>I fell onto the floor in a weird manner, and I can say that because I hurt my leg in the process. I ignored the pain and stood upright, sucking in a breath as I stretched out.<p>

Henry opened the door to his bathroom and looked like he was about to say something before his eyes widened and he looked me over, now speechless. I looked away from him and refused to say something.

"Tetsu, wha…" he began, "…what the hell? What the hell happened to you? Are you alright?"

I nodded my head and gave a sheepish look at him. "Can I…use your shower?"

He quickly nodded his head and couldn't seem to take in the amazing amount of blood that stained my hair, skin, and clothes.

I turned on the water to the shower and didn't want to looked at myself. There was so much blood…everything smelled like blood. I could take it in my mouth. My skin was sticky because of it. The dried parts tugged at the follicles of my hair and irritated my skin, causing me to scratch at it out of annoyance. It dug underneath my nails like grains of sand and they decided to stubbornly stick there.

Then I found my eyes wandering down to my clothes. Even though the water was freezing, I quickly stepped into it and wash the blood off of my face. I felt a sudden wave of panic and I quickly took off my shirt, pants, shoes, and socks, carelessly throwing them onto the floor as if they were plagued with a disease.

Henry seemed to be surprised, but it was more to the fact that I had moved so quickly and I had probably scared him. He seemed reluctant, but he went over to them to pick them up and possibly wash them, but I stopped him by saying, "Don't. I'll take care of it. You don't need to get their blood on your hands."

He looked at me for a moment before turning his gaze back my clothes. "Tetsu, what the hell did you do? Why is there so much blood?"

I stopped washing myself of the blood and put my hands up against the wall.

"Did you just kill somebody?"

"Two people," I said. "One of them got away. I accidentally pulled them into Underground…both me and my friend, Spike. We didn't mean to, but everyone was in a tizzy to hunt them down. The monsters couldn't go near two of the people so I had to get them." I touched a tender spot on my head and felt a pain. Damn bitch, that Christabella. It felt like somebody had cracked me over the head with a ski pole.

I looked down at my feet and saw the blood swirling around me. It flowed down the drained and disappeared.

Henry stood up and said, "Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so. My head hurts, but I don't think it's bad or anything." I was quiet for a moment until I noticed that he was wearing his pajamas. "What time is it?"

"Eight at night."

I thought about that. It wasn't eight o'clock when I went to Underground, was it? Did I really stay there for over twelve hours?

I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. It only took me about two minutes to rinse myself of the blood.

Henry turned away from me as I went to grab a towel. That was when I realized that I was only wearing my underwear and bra. I said to him, "I don't care, Henry. You can look. It doesn't matter."

"My morals are telling me not to."

"Then you really are a gentleman," I said and dried myself off. "I'm sorry if I disturbed you."

"It's alright," he said, but I had a feeling that he wasn't alright with it at all. Henry was a photographer, not an EMT or doctor, so he wasn't around blood that much. The only time he ever saw real blood was probably from paper cuts. Seeing me probably scared him to no end, but he stayed there to offer me help and made sure that I was okay. I knew that he was doing that out of sincerity because he didn't even once glance my body and always kept his eyes looking at mine when he talked me. He wasn't the type of person who ogled others.

"What do you want me to do with the towel?" I asked.

He turned around to me and took it, then said, "You don't have any other clothes with you?"

I shook my head. "I left my bag behind by accident. I know where it is, though."

Henry glanced around the bathroom before he saw his dark-blue bathrobe hanging near the towels. He grabbed it and put it on me.

"Wait, but…this is yours-"

"So is the shower," he said. "Can't have you walking my apartment half-naked now, can I?" He managed a friendly smile as I tied the front of it closed.

"This is really soft," I said and realized that it smelled a bit like flowers. "Smells nice too…funny. Back at my old house, everything always smelled like alcohol and cigarettes and unclean laundry and filth…it was disgusting. But then I come here, and everything smells like vanilla and flowers."

Henry smiled. "I like to keep my house clean."

"It smells so much better than blood…."

He looked at the clothes on the ground and said, "Here, let's get your clothes cleaned. You can stay overnight if you want."

I grabbed onto the bloodied articles and thanked him.

We quickly put them in the washing machine (with a gallon of stain-remover…I promised to him that I'd get him a new bucket of that stuff for his birthday) and I touched the wound on my head. I regretted it afterwards because I felt blood trickle down my hand. Damn…it must've been swollen, and it felt like it was gradually getting more painful.

"You're bleeding," Henry said.

"Yeah, my head got a little hurt…."

He moved my hair out of the way and raised his eyebrows. "You need that checked."

"How bad is it?"

"Not very good, from what I can see," he said. "Did you get whacked by something?"

"Possibly…slightly, maybe, yes…no…I don't know. Did I? It really hurts." I felt it starting to bleed a little more.

"I wouldn't know what to do. My neighbor's a nurse, though."

"Oh really?" I said. "She'd know."

* * *

><p>It turns out that this nurse lived in the apartment right next to Henry. He knocked on her door and after a moment, the lady answered. She was young- probably in her late twenties -and had brown hair that spilled down to her shoulders. "Hey, you're…Henry, right? From next door?" She then saw me holding a hand to my bleeding wound and she looked alarmed.<p>

"Hello," Henry said and appeared nervous. "We're sorry to bother you, but my friend" -he gestured to me- "got a little hurt. I remember you saying that you're a nurse…? Do you think you could help?"

"Come in, both of you," she said and ushered us inside. "What happened to you?" She lead us to her bathroom.

"Got into a fight," I replied, "with my boyfriend. He hit me with a plate and kicked me out, and I didn't know where to go, so I went to Henry's."

She looked startled at me as she sat me down on the toilet. "He _hit_ you, with a _plate_? Honey, that's assault."

"He's abusive, but I'm bringing him to court over this. I'm gonna put his lazy little ass in the county jail."

She examined my injury and let out a bit of a sigh. "He got you pretty good," she said. "But it doesn't look like you'll need stitches or anything. You know those head injuries; one little scratch means a lot of blood, and a lot of blood makes it look three times worse than it really is."

"So it's not bad?"

"No, but I'll take care of it. What you should be concerned about is your 'boyfriend.'"

"I'm gonna call the cops, don't worry. I just didn't know what to do and Henry's my friend, so I just…sort of ran away to him…."

Was that lie really elaborate? I kept on heading back to the 'abusive boyfriend' falsehood.

"My god, how old are you?" she asked and kept a concerned look on her face.

"Twenty-two," I lied, then decided to change the subject. "What's your name?"

"I'm Eileen Galvin."

Henry decided to say something. "Sorry if we're bothering you, Eileen, but we didn't really know what to do."

"It's no problem at all. You've got to be a good man if your friend can go to you for help. Speaking of which, you've lived for about half a year, right?"

"Just a little over six months."

"I never really got to know you that well."

"Oh, well…um…what do you want to know?"

I could tell that he was uncomfortable. As I got to know the young man a little better, I picked up on the fact that he didn't have very good communication skills. He had lived here for half a year, yet his neighbor barely knew his name. I also remembered a family member of his telling him 'not to be shy.' I guessed that Henry must have been a lot shyer than I initially thought he was. In that case, I owed him a HUGE favor for taking me over to his neighbor that he barely even knew. Maybe I'd find some way to buy one of those really expensive professional cameras and give it to him along with the promised stain-remover.

Just a little antibiotic and a large bandage later, and I was set. A stupid headache was starting to form, but I could just suck it up and deal with it.

"Thanks Eileen," I said and shook her hand.

"No problem," she replied and smirked. "I've been working at the hospital nearby for a few years, so I've got some experience."

"Well, I'm always glad to hear that." I smiled and, after thanking her a little more, left.

Henry let out a long-held sigh and I could see that he was seriously stressed out. I got a little concerned. "Are you okay?"

"Hmm? I'm fine. Why? Do I not look alike?"

"You look a little sick."

"Oh, I uh…I usually don't…I don't like to be uh…"

"Noticeable?"

"Exactly."

I had picked up on that, but I understood what that's like. I usually liked to stay in the back of the classroom and mind my own business. Besides, my bad reputations made people want to stay away from me, especially when they learned that even if they talked behind my back at a safe distance, I'd punch them in the mouth afterwards. I shouldn't have actually done that; I should have just let it go and leave it at peace, but they all got the message that it didn't matter whether they're a good distance away from me or not. If they did something to me that I didn't like, they'd regret it.

Again, I should have just let that go. If minds are meant to think, then let them think, right? I didn't know why I cared about what they said about me, but the remarks about my hair and my build and height pissed me off.

All the more reason to love Pyramid Head.

* * *

><p><strong>Daww, isn't Henry sweet? XD lol, I think I need to remind you all that there isn't any HenryTetsu. In fact, there's no Tetsu/anyone. I'm not pairing anybody in this story together. Besides, in Silent Hill 4, I believe that Henry and Eileen simply become good friends.**

**Correct me if I'm wrong XD**

**...**

**Tetsu's a vicious animal! Fear her! rawr :O**


	25. Chapter 24

**Sorry guys, no Pyramid Head in this chapter :(**

**He'll be in the next one, though :)**

* * *

><p>We were sitting at opposite ends of the couch together, deciding to watch a movie before we went to sleep for the night. We agreed upon the fact that we needed a comedy, because I was still a little jittery after the fifteen hours or so I spend in Underground and Henry was disturbed by the massive amount of blood I brought to his bathroom. A good comedy would allow us (but mostly me) to wind down a bit and relax. His apartment, like the other dimensions, was a bit of a sanctuary to me. The police trusted him because, when I first met him, he told them that he had seen me and showed them where I had gone, which meant that they believed he wasn't in league with me. The only problem for them was that I had hidden, but now that Henry trusted me completely, he wouldn't ever rat me out to the police. He didn't have any need to.<p>

I never really got to watch movies, and I didn't recognize any of the titles that Henry had, so he decided to pull out called "The Blues Brothers." I didn't recognize any of the names, and he seemed surprised that I had never watched a comedy movie before. I think that he was beginning realize what a completely different life I had had compared to everybody else's, and it included my lack of usage of technologies like VCRs and computers. I only used either of them a couple times in my life. I was usually drawing, painting, doing schoolwork, or spending time with Pyramid Head and the monsters. If not that, then I was sleeping.

Either way, he promised to me that it was hilarious.

He was true to his word, because after the first thirty minutes, I could barely breathe. The part with the nun whacking the protagonists over their heads with a meter stick had me rolling on a fit of laughter for a good five minutes, then I insisted that we watch the scene again.

After the scene passed, Henry went into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of chocolate milk. I raised an eyebrow at that. "Chocolate milk?" I said.

"What? I like milk." He twisted the cap off.

"Lucky," I said. "My dad never kept milk in the house. He always said, "Milk makes people fat! All fat people drink milk!" Pft, yeah right. He should have looked at himself in the mirror. I feel like beer does a better job of getting people fat than milk. Besides, just look at you. Unless if I'm blind, you're not overweight in the slightest bit. And I'm not calling you scrawny, either. I'm just saying that you're a pretty darn healthy weight to be at."

He handed me the bottle and said, "If you've never had it before, then take a sip."

I smiled at him and my sip turned into a gulp instead. I raised my eyebrows at it for a moment and I said, "Hmm…I've never had that before."

"I have an idea," he said and took back the bottle, then stood up and walked into the kitchen.

I decided to follow him and watched him take out a gallon of milk with a funny-shaped bottle that said 'Hershey's Chocolate Syrup.' I said, "Man, you must drink a lot of milk. You have a gallon of it. Doesn't milk go bad pretty quickly?"

He grabbed a large glass and poured the milk into it. "It turns sour after a little while, but I tend to drink a lot of it. I blame it on my mom."

I laughed. "That explains why you're tall."

He smiled and said, "She was always persistent about eating vegetables, too."

"I'd probably do that to my kid too," I jested. "My poor, poor unborn child."

He opened up the funny-looking bottle and poured a lot of the chocolate syrup into the milk.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I think you'll like this version a little better." He grabbed a spoon and stirred it up until the white milk became a chocolate-brown. "Mom always made it for me like this." He handed it to me and, aside from the fruit that I ate, it was probably the sweetest thing that I had ever tasted. "You like it?" he asked.

"I don't understand how you're not fat if you have this waiting for you in your refrigerator every day."

He laughed and I gulped down half of it in a couple seconds. "I stand a lot during the day."

"That's right; you're on your feet a lot."

"Did you have a job? Other than school?"

"I worked at Mimi Art in the Silent Hill Mall, right next to the bakery. I don't know if you go there or not." We went back to the couch and I sipped the drink a little more.

"Silent Hill's a bit of a drive from here," he said. "Downtown is right there" -he gestured outside of the windows, where he had an excellent view of south Ashfield- "so I don't really need to go to Silent Hill. I can actually walk everywhere I need to, or just take the subway."

"I never used a subway until I met you. I always walked or ran everywhere. I didn't even take the bus to school because I was scared of the kids there, so I ran to school instead. Besides, it kept me from being fat like Dad. I know I shouldn't talk about the-" I was about to tell him that I shouldn't talk negatively about the deceased, but he didn't know that it was I who had killed him. I stopped myself just in time and instead said, "-never mind. He's just a bad man."

"Certainly sounds like it."

I focused my attention back on the movie.

* * *

><p>"Christ in a hand basket…." I said solemnly as I looked at my ruined clothes.<p>

"I could run it through again."

"You're out of stain remover."

"I'm not working today."

"I need to find Christabella."

"You don't have any other clothes with you."

"Maybe I should just go get my bag. Actually, wait…I still need to find Christie. But if I go to Underground and come back, I'd get too tired to go to Silent Hill. Maybe I should just go there, come back here, sleep, then leave…man, I've been imposing on you way too much."

"No you haven't."

"Trust me, Henry, I definitely have been. Man…I need to think far ahead in advance before I decide to do something. Actually, no; I should make three decisions on what to do in case anything goes wrong, that way maybe I won't find myself half-naked in a man's apartment wearing his bathrobe."

"Why three?"

"You know how many people get themselves in a pickle because they don't have a backup plan? Yeah, I'm one of those people right now."

Henry almost laughed, but I couldn't tell if it was because of my dialogue or if he just thought that I was acting silly. "Come on. I think I can help."

"I'm gonna give you a really good gift for Christmas this year just for being nice."

He lead me into his bedroom and, with the soft light of mid-morning shining through, I could see it completely, unlike last time when I scared the hell out of him. It was a pretty nice room that he had. There was a large picture of a cathedral in Silent Hill hanging above his bureau, and I recognized it to be the church that the Cult was in. The one that Pyramid Head and the monsters can't go into. I felt bitter looking at that picture.

Then I noticed the large landscape picture he had of Toluca Lake hanging above his bed. It had been a bright and sunny day and, judging by the trees, probably around the beginning of spring. There were various other pictures hanging around, including the lighthouse in Silent Hill and a snapshot of the downtown area. I could tell that he was definitely a professional photographer.

"It might be a little big, but it's better than nothing," Henry said and handed me a black shirt with a pair of blue jeans and a belt.

I said, "First the food, then the shower, then the couch, now your clothes…I almost feel like a parasite."

"You're not," he said. "I'm helping you for a reason, you know."

"It'll definitely pay you back, I can tell you that."

He threw a thin scarf to me and said, "I know that you need to keep your hair covered, so will a scarf suffice?"

"Course it will," I said and smiled. Maybe I shouldn't have felt so ashamed of relying on him so much. He honestly didn't mind helping me, and we were good friends. I'd do a lot for my friends too if they ever needed help. In fact, I would have gone out of my way to help them.

"However, I do need some help with a few things, if you wouldn't mind coming along," Henry said.

"Henry, I'll help you with whatever it is, even if it means gutting the building's sewage pipe."

He laughed at me.

* * *

><p>"You live a really, really neat place," I said to Henry and gazed around the downtown area. The black scarf covered my head like a hejab and I was disguised as a boy. We decided that if anybody asked, I was Henry's younger cousin who had come to visit from Brahms. With a little bit of makeup from him (he had makeup because it turned out that even though his occupation was a wildlife photographer, he also did expressionemotional photography, which required makeup) and a few attire changes, no one would be able to see that I was a woman. The only difference would have been my voice, but I could get by on that because some men, though grown into their bodies, still had boyish tones of voice.

"That's why I live so close to it."

"So what exactly was it that you needed me for?"

"I'm meeting with a coworker of mine."

"Really? What for?"

"We need to discuss a couple things, but uh…she's really scary."

I smirked. "Scary? Really?"

"You have no idea. And she's a severe feminist and I'm really uncomfortable around her, and she knows it, but you just have no idea how scary she is."

I patted him on the back. "Ahh, women and our intimidations. Don't worry, I'll sit next to you."

Part of me wanted to laugh at all of that. He was scared of meeting up with somebody and wanted me there for comfort and moral support. Well, at least I knew what that was like.

We waited at the café for about ten minutes. During the time, I noticed how Henry was constantly scratching his arm to the point where he started to bleed. After I informed him of it, he got embarrassed and I could see that he was trying to shrink away into the seat. If he could have camouflaged like a mimic octopus, he would have turned invisible at that moment. He held a few napkins to his arm to stop the bleeding and I discovered that it was a nervous habit of his.

I told him to clasp his hands together to prevent himself from doing that.

"Seriously man, calm down," I said.

"I can't," Henry replied and wiped a bit of perspiration from his brow.

"Just relax. It's not like she's in menopause or anything."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure she is, Alex."

We had also agreed that my name for the day was going to be Alex. "Okay, so if she's a psychopathic, hormonally-unstable bitch then I'll deal with her nicely, alright?"

"She's wearing a beaver…."

"Umm…what?" I gave him a quizzical expression.

"Over in the doorway." He closed his eyes and sank down in his seat.

"What the hell does a beav-" I stopped mid-sentence when I saw her walk in through the door. "Sweet baby Jesus in a pickled potato."

The lady was short, hunched over, and wore the most hideous outfit I had ever seen. Her high heels were black with purple rhinestones on them and her dress was a violet color. A Mali mud cloth-designs bag was hanging from her sagging shoulders and she wore a dead beaver-like…_thing_…around her neck, as well as a hat made out of some weird bird (maybe a duck?) with the feathers and everything still attached. She had gray, wispy hair flying around in all directions. Her eyelids were practically painted blue with makeup and her lips had bright- almost neon -pink lipstick. She must have been around fifty-five years of age, but her wrinkly skin made her seem much older.

"Ugh, all of these people crowded into too small of a place," she complained in her British accent as she spotted us and sat down. The moment she approached, I nearly gagged at the sheer amount of perfume that she wore.

It was so thick, I could almost taste it.

Henry let out a shaky breath and started to scratch himself again, but I took a hold of his hand and placed it on his other. I had never seen him this stressed out before. "Hello Miss Ginnian," Henry started off.

"Hullo," she replied, then looked at me. "Ahh, I see that you brought along a friend?"

"Umm, yes this is Alex-"

"By the Lord, I can't tell if Alex is a man or a woman."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Good Lord, dress like your proper self so that others can distinguish you. God, you dress horribly."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just look at you; baggy clothes, too long of a shirt, and no creative fashion whatsoever. It looks like you just woke up and grabbed a bunch of random clothes laying around in the garbage. Good Lord, you have no aesthetic."

The bitch flipped a switch. "At least I don't wear a dead carcass on my head," I said.

Henry stepped on my foot.

"I mean; oh what a lovely hat. You kill it yourself?"

"Alex," Henry whispered and gave me a frightened glare.

"That's not what I meant. What I meant to ask was if you noticed the colony of intelligent bacteria growing on the tail of your beaver, because it looks like they've invented a whole new galaxy called Stench-and-Fleas. Hmm…you might want to get that checked out. New galaxies being invented around your neck can be harmful to your health, I imagine. In fact…I think it already started sucking in perfume that smells like dinosaur vomit…."

"What the hell…" Henry mumbled and put a hand up to his eyes.

"Young lady!" she yelled.

"I thought that you said that you didn't know if I was a man or a woman because the process of thinking such a thought requires much thinking and therefore you could think a thought of that thought-of memory."

"How dare you-"

"LADY FROM HOBOKEN!" I yelled. "Maybe dare I do dare do that."

"This is unacceptable behavior!"

"Nah, unacceptable behavior would be somebody singing Red Hot Chili Peppers while strippin' nude on public on a table," I shot back. "Ever been to New York before? You'd see what I mean. ANYWAY…didn't we all come here to discuss an important topic involving my good friend over here?" I gestured to Henry and realized that I just made things much more difficult for him. However, I did manage to see a slight curve of his lips.

"Yes," she said and turned to Henry. "I believe that you need to make your friend here learn how to hold her tongue."

"He's just crazy, that's all. Don't mind him, please."

"And I shall not as long as 'he' keeps his mouth shut."

"Why not just doubt and say that I'm a hermaphrodite?" I suggested.

"Then your hermaphrodite friend," Mrs. Ginnian began, "should let us get on our business and I will pretend that everything the he-she just said was not true."

"Nope, course not, t'was all a lie." I gave a smile to her and she rolled her eyes. "Sorry about that Henry, but sometimes I need to be a bitch too, you know. Hormones can be killers."

"The hell…" Henry said and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Anyway, Miss Ginnian, you said that we needed to-"

"Discuss who does the Shepard's Glen job, I know, I know, you think I'm a fool?"

"No," Henry said, then glanced at me.

"Actually he likes your outfits," I said. "He thinks that you're very artistic."

I had no clue how thick-skulled this lady must have been, but she smiled broadly and did had a grandmotherly voice as she thanked me and called me 'dear.'

Half an hour passed and I lost interest in their conversation, so I started to zone off and occupied myself with watching the people passing through the mall that we were in. Everything was going fine- Henry had relaxed a bit and their conversations were smooth -until my necklace started to vibrate a bit. I looked down at it and with sudden realization, I glanced around he café in a hidden panic. Somebody from the Cult must have been nearby.

As I scanned the crowds of people for faces, I didn't see anyone that I recognized. Then my necklace started to vibrate more and more and I hid the thing in my shirt. I remembered to tell myself to say calm, even if they're getting closer. Stay calm and remain vigilant.

My necklace started to vibrate less and the person passed me, but then it remained doing a steady, silent vibrating. I figured that the Cult member must've been seated behind us. I wanted to glance behind to see, but I didn't want to look suspicious. I tried to drown out what everybody was saying so that I could hear their conversation behind me.

"It's like she and him are everywhere but nowhere all at the same time," a man said. "What are we going to do? Christabella stays in the church."

"Look for her," another man answered. "She's bound to be somewhere. We know that she's staying the Silent Hill-Ashfield-Brahms area."

"She follows the Shadowed One. She's probably with him right now."

"Tomorrow, Christabella will exorcise five more Cult members in preparation for meeting Tetsu, in case we come across her or any of the monsters. But now that Tetsu is a monster herself, I'm afraid that we might need to fear her just as much as the Shadowed One. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to use the restroom. If the waitress comes by, just tell her that I'd like a diet coke, please." The man stood up and walked away.

"I'll be right back," I told Henry and followed after him into the men's room.

Nobody was in there except us, so I locked the bathroom door and I said, "Coincidentally, I happened to be right in front of you, you know?"

The man dressed in a tuxedo turned around and looked at me.

"How many Cult members are there? You said that five were being 'exorcised.' I feel like ghosts aren't haunting them or anything."

The man reached inside of his jacket and became startled. Without thinking, he pulled out a gun and pointed it at me.

I jumped and, with no control over it, felt my arms transform into those strange mantis-swords again. They allowed me to stick onto the ceiling and I swung at the man. In a frenzy of blades and muffled noises, I attacked him viciously.

I stopped after a couple seconds and stared at the dead corpse before I looked in the mirror. God, I really was a monster. Pale skin, black eyes, strange blade-arms with serrated edges…

Blue came out of the wall and grabbed onto the body. He made a groaning noise at me for a mere second before he pulled the body away into the wall and a Sniffer crawled out. "Go to the next room," someone said just the Sniffer began to suck up all of the blood until the tiled floor was back to its original, white self.

The black substance went away from me and I returned to my normal self. I pressed my hands up against the wall and, without knowing that I was even able to do so, came out into the adjacent room; the lady's room.

I came out into a stall and heard a few other women laughing nearby. I waited in there for a bit before I exited and washed my hands. The women barely even gave me a glance as I left and returned to Henry. With the door to the men's room locked, people wouldn't be able to get in there for a while and all evidence was gone.

I saw Henry stand and shake hands with the lady. They gave each other smiles before Miss Ginnian left and I rejoined with my friend. "We good?" I said.

"Pretty much. The waitress came by while you were gone, so the bill's paid."

"Are you broke now?"

He laughed. "Not quite. Miss Ginnian paid for it."

"Well that's good," I said and pat him on the back as we started to leave. "It means that you won't have to survive off of instant meals."

"I hate those things."

"Oh god, me too. They turn me sick."

Henry looked at me for a while before saying, "You're shaking."

I looked down at my trembling hands. All what I thought was, What the hell? I know I just killed somebody, but why am I shaking? My facial expression went blank and I asked, "Did you hear anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"When I left."

"I thought you went to the restroom."

We stopped walking and he stood in front of me, but I simply stared at his feet. He grabbed onto my shoulders and said, "Tetsu, what did you do?"

"You didn't hear what those people were talking about behind us?"

"No, of course not!" He started to raise his voice a bit, then realized that he could have possibly drawn attention. It actually surprised me; Henry didn't seem like the kind of person who would have raised his voice, and he was always so quiet. I didn't like to see the sudden transformation. He took in a breath and said, "What did they say?"

"They were talking about me and Pyramid Head. That other guy's still back there…."

"Tetsu, my god…" he said.

"They said that Christabella's going to 'exorcise' five people tomorrow, and it has something to do with me. They said so."

Henry let go of me and I managed to look up at his face for a second.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm really sorry."

"You can't just go around ki…I understand."

We were quiet for a long time. Neither of us wanted to say anything. At first I tried to repress the fact of what I just did, but I accepted it. I had been doing it so much lately. All of the murders just seemed to blend together in one large pot of guilt.

Henry snapped me back to my attention when he said, "Come on, let's go."

* * *

><p><strong>Sooo yeah, not much really got accomplished in here other than a bit of Tetsu and Henry bonding, and a revealed ability of Tetsu…and an exorcism thingy! Yaaay, maybe this chapter did have a point :D<strong>

**For those of you who don't know, Hershey is a huge chocolate company here in America and they make all sorts of stuff. I love chocolate…**

**And I don't know why I made a reference to Hoboken _ I mean…that lady has nothing to do with the city of Hoboken, or the state of New Jersey XD**

**Anyway, as promised, the next chapter will have Pyramid Head and the other lovely hellish dimensions }:) Maybe I'll put the hospital in sometime soon…the hospitals always seem to be my favorite parts of the Silent Hill games…especially in the fourth one.**

**The hospital in the fourth game was all about scaring the player _ Have you ever searched all the rooms in that level? God, that was so freaky…**


	26. Chapter 25

**For those of you who haven't played Silent Hill 2, the streets I mention are the actual ones ;) And you get a cameo of James and Laura!**

**Oh yeah, and Valtiel is a monster/other thingy in Silent Hill 3. He doesn't do anything to the protagonist (Heather) but I feel like including him anyway :)**

**P.S. I was listening to the Red Pyramid soundtrack from Silent Hill 2 on YouTube. I was reading the comments and some people mentioned me and my story! I got all excited :3**

**P.S.S. Tetsu's complaints are annoying me XD Suck it up already girl, find your inner Heather Mason!**

* * *

><p>I had the most sudden urge just to rip off that little girl's pretty, small, frail face. She was young and innocent and looked so happy holding onto her father's hand. Then I heard what she said as she tugged on his arm: "Come on, James! I wanna get to the park!"<p>

Her blonde-haired dad, James, just smiled and let her run ahead of him. "Don't get too far ahead Laura," he said, and his adopted daughter (or stepdaughter) turned around and showed her bright, sunny smile, tacitly telling him that she wasn't going to go out of sight.

How I envied that little blonde girl skipping in her pretty little dress with her beautiful and kind-looking father. How I wished to steal that sort of life….

I snapped out of my thoughts and realized just how morbid I was being. Pyramid Head was telling me, "Don't, Tetsu. You're not like that." Of course, I was hearing him in my head, but sometimes it seemed as if he was standing right next to me, talking in that deep voice of his.

"What do you know?" I snapped aloud in an agitated voice. When other people gave me strange looks, I realized that they had heard me and I felt embarrassed. I thought to myself, It's not fair. She gets to have a life like that, and I get to have a life like this. My home is in Hell, out of all places, and one of my rooms consists of pelts of human skin and monsters that scare other monsters. I'm pretty sure that this Laura doesn't have a room like that.

"You don't go there," he said. "You've seen that place once and that's it."

"I'm never going back there," I whispered. "Never again. Not through that hole, not to that room. Only if Christabella gets in my way will I go there."

I was taking a detour to the church by cutting through Rosewater Park. Coincidentally, James and Laura were going there as well, and the entire way, I remained bitter and seething over the happiness that Laura was in. The way how James picked her up and snuggled with her…

…I shouldn't think things like that. My anger disappeared when I realized that James reminded me of Pyramid Head, simply in the way how he was treating his beloved Laura. I was too big now to be handled like that- quite frankly, I didn't want it anymore -but when I was ten, it meant the world to me. I shouldn't have felt so much negative emotion towards Laura.

She was probably only ten years old, after all.

I came out of Rosewater Park and followed Nathan Avenue, where I turned on Neely Street and passed a group of four kids traveling with their parents. I felt relentless loathing towards them.

The church wasn't too far away. It stood looming over me, like a gigantic thing just destined to be set on fire. Maybe all what I needed to do was take a match and, with that tiny little bit of flickering fire, burn down the whole thing. I wouldn't mind committing arson. I was already a murderer and thief.

I stepped onto the lawn in front of the cathedral and I started to feel a pressure in my head. At first I ignored it, but then it grew to a migraine and worsened when I got closer to the building. I put a hand up to my forward and grimaced, squeezing my eyes shut as I nearly fell backwards. I turned around and walked away from the large building.

Back on the street, my migraine went away and I glared at the building. Now _I_ couldn't get near it? What the hell had Christabella done? Perhaps she already did the 'exorcisms' and I couldn't get near it. Or maybe she had been doing them at that moment and turned the church into a complete sanctuary for her kind, where I couldn't step on the grass without getting hurt.

I kicked a small rock and cursed out a colorful rainbow of words as I stormed away. I kept on thinking to myself, I'm going to set that building on fire. I can't get near it though…I'll take a flare gun and shoot it. Wait, but the building's made out of stone…. "God DAMN it!" I yelled and pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. People turned in my direction (again) and parted a path for me when they realized that I was one seriously pissed off woman.

What could I have done? Stone like that doesn't burn; it's just not combustible. I thought, Maybe I could use a grenade or some other bomb. But what place makes bombs? I'm no bomb technician.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" somebody asked.

I turned in the man's direction and saw that it was a police officer. "No. I'm not alright. I'm never alright, you see?" I gestured to myself. "Goodbye and good day to you, pal." I started to march away.

"Hold on a second," he said. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"You can leave me alone. That'd be good." I quickly walked away from him and didn't look back.

Ten minutes passed of me simply walking through downtown Silent Hill. I tried to figure out how to get inside of the church or destroy it when I heard a hushed voice say, "Behind you."

I stopped walking and I turned around. The same police officer was following me. I gave him a funny look and thought 'oh crap.' Then a smile crept up onto my face. He tried to make it seem as if it was just coincidence that he was following me, but I approached him nonetheless and he didn't back off. "Say," I said. "You been following me?"

He glared. "You disrupted the peace."

I looked over at a group of teenagers nearby that were currently being loud and obnoxious. "Yeah right," I said. "I told you that I'd like to be left alone. If you don't mind…stop following me. Or tell me a real reason."

When he said nothing, I turned around and began to saunter away.

"You don't know what happened here twenty years ago, do you?" the man asked.

"I know what happened a hundred years ago, not twenty. I do remember somebody telling me that there was a girl who was murdered with a bunch of people." I turned around to him and smiled. "Why? You know them?"

"Pyramid Head did that."

"So you're with Christabella?"

"Your friend murdered my brother in that incident."

I raised an eyebrow. "Care to tell me what happened?" I thought it was strange that he was being so candid towards me. It was weird that he wasn't afraid. Maybe he was stupid, maybe he was fearless, or maybe he just didn't care either way.

"The Order expels evil, Tetsu. On that day, twenty years ago, they were disposing of somebody who harbored evil-"

"You mean a little girl?"

"Yes. A little girl. But something went wrong. Pyramid Head had access into the church, where the exorcism was taking place. He trapped everyone inside and butchered them. I don't know if he was trying to save the girl or not, but he turned the place into a slaughterhouse."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

"Because Christabella's going to 'exorcise' three people soon. I'm a police officer and I don't want to be with the Order anymore, but if I leave, they'll kill me."

I crossed my arms. "Really? Well I know about Christie's plans, but you're just being too hard to believe." I turned around and started to walk away.

"Tetsu, I want you to stop them. Pyramid Head may have killed my brother, but quite frankly, he deserved it. Christabella's going to murder them today."

"And what happens if she does?"

"I don't know."

"Well that's too bad, because I can't get in there anyway. It hurts my head too much. Anyway, come with me. I need to show you something." I didn't actually have anything to show him; it was just too much of a risk to have him around me. So I took him to a secluded place, and…well…killed him.

* * *

><p>"Pyramid, what do I do?" I asked him. I was in the hospital dimension, where there were random wheelchairs lying about in pools of blood and the walls were stained with weird colors like yellows, blacks, and reds. There was a large red streak mark on the wall, almost as if something mashed a person's body against it like an insect and then dragged it across. Random bed frames and moldy mattresses soaked with blood were lying about in the hallways and rooms. Beneath our feet were metal-grated floors with a black nothingness underneath. The ceilings were tall and rusty with a couple bodies hanging in cages from them.<p>

This world…I loved it a lot because it always seemed as if all of my delusional nightmares came to life and granted me satisfaction by trapping the bodies- and possibly the souls -of a few people that I hated with my entire heart. One of the bodies that was hanging was apparently going to be eternally alive, because despite the fact that it had no skin or eyelids, the eyes never dried out and it was always weakly gasping for breath. The body resembled much of the boy Pyramid Head peeled the skin off of seven years ago.

I grabbed onto the wheel of a musty wheelchair that was turned on its side and spun it. The rusted metal shrieked and lowered in tone as the wheel's momentum became less and less. I sighed the metallic-scented air.

Pyramid Head grunted once and his knife scraped against the ground when he moved.

"I wish that I could just blow that place up, you know? But what should I do? I can't get in there."

"Be smart."

"Gee, thanks. That helps a lot," I sarcastically said, then I huffed out a breath. "Sorry. I didn't mean to mean to sound nasty or anything." I looked up at him from where I was sitting on the ground. "Be smart…like how? Maybe I'll just think."

The hanging body next to me let out a loud gasp and I glared at him. He was looking at me. "It's your fault that you're like this, you know," I said to it. "I'd hit you with a rock if I had one."

"Don't," Pyramid said. "Do not become so cruel."

"I'm sorry. I just want to wrap my hands around that lady's throat so badly and asphyxiate the life out of her."

"You're turning into something you don't want to be."

"Am I, really?" I said. "What will you do about it, then? Apparently I can't detect it."

"I've saved you many times before. Don't make me need to save you from yourself."

I was silent for a while. Perhaps he was right, and somewhere in my brain, I knew that he was correct. "Yeah? Well…what if you need to?"

"Then I will."

I smirked for a moment, but continued staring at the dirty, tiled ground. "That girl that that police officer was telling me about…were you close to her?"

Pyramid shook his head from left to right.

"Huh…then how did you get in there?"

"The candles were in the wrong order. I could enter."

"Why did you kill her, though? She-"

"I didn't. They killed her by cutting her up."

"Oh…sorry."

"You're fine," he said and brushed his hand across a rusty metal bed frame.

"Hey…I know I've asked you this a couple times before, but I want to see what your face looks like. Can you at least try to take your helmet off?"

"I can't."

"But you never told me why though."

"It's sealed on."

"But there's a couple knobs in the back and sides."

"I can't move them. I'd rather you don't see my face."

"Do you even know what you look like?"

He shook his head.

I sighed and looked around. The body started to convulse and gag. I picked up a piece of a broken drip stand and threw it at its head before I stood up and brushed myself off. "Anyway, perhaps I should just wait outside of the church for the 'exorcism targets' to come by. I wish I knew what they looked like. Besides, after the ability or power thing that you gave me, I'm a lot faster now, right?"

"It doesn't…always…work like tha…."

"Are you losing your voice again?"

He nodded. Talking to Pyramid could be difficult at times. Not even he knew why he could speak perfectly fine at times and then not be able to use his voice at others.

"That's fine," I said. "Let's go find Valtiel."

It was more like a haphazard search that I only used as an excuse to think about attacking that cursed church. Besides, it was giving Pyramid time to get his voice back. I had a lot of problems. I didn't know what the chosen sacrifices (or exorcism targets, whatever they're better off being called) looked like. I didn't know when the event was talking place, and I didn't know what would happen if I didn't stop it. Perhaps I'd be better off if I did nothing at all and just let things go away on their own.

"Do you think that I should stand by?" I asked Pyramid and turned around to him.

He shrugged his shoulders as a response.

"I don't know either," I said. "I think I'll just go back to Henry and wait. If I start to explode with pain then I'll know why."

_Mmmrph,_ Pyramid tried to say. His voice troubles were frustrating him, so I took a hold of his hand and lead us down a random hallway. I decided to talk to rid him of the frustration. I could tell that he was honestly trying to his hardest to form a word, but it just wouldn't come out.

"You don't need to say anything," I said. "Just rest your voice."

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry about the really late update, but I had a bad case of writer's block ;_;<strong>

**Tetsu is such a monster! Oh and I was reading a manga a couple days ago and the author/artist has a Q & A section in the back of the book and somebody's name was Tetsu :3 I didn't know that Tetsu was actually a name XD I was just surprised because, unless if I'm mistaken, Tetsu means "iron" in Japanese.**

**At this point I just feel like writing stuff, so I'll say that the inspiration for the description of "a body being smashed against the wall like an insect, and then being dragged across" came to me from a mosquito a couple days ago. She bit me in the middle of the night and I found her the next day, still in my bedroom. I squished her and accidentally smeared her against the wall, so I had a streak of bug guts and my blood (sucked from my shoulder) stuck on the wall which I had to cleaned off with toilet paper O_O**

**While I respect bugs and whatnot, I don't want them near me unless if they're dragonflies, butterflies, or damselflies. So having a mosquito with high-pitched buzzing buzz around my head all night made me rather sleepless…I hid underneath my covers, too.**

**Just goes to prove how much I don't like having those insects around me XD**

…**I was hoping that she'd have gone after my dog instead, 'cause she was sleeping right next to me and all, but noooo…she just had to go after the human instead. I guess we just have tasty blood.**


	27. Chapter 26

**I saw the Black Swan recently. If you've seen the movie, then you'll know where I got the inspiration from for Henry's mother's little 'problem' that'll be revealed soon.**

**ZOMFGBBQ HENRY'S SOMEWHAT TALKATIVE IN THIS CHAPTER!**

**And Tetsu complains too much.**

* * *

><p>I remembered being twelve years old when I was playing hike-and-seek with Pyramid. I had hidden underneath a pile of metal bed frames and musty mattresses in a hospital room. He was always much slower than Wormy, but once he found me, I gave him a big smile and giggled. Then he playfully picked me up fireman-style and spun me around a couple times. When he put me down, I continued to hang onto his arm. He was strong and lifted me again and swung me back and forth, all the while with me giggling and being the kid that I was.<p>

He put up with a lot of things from me, but he never seemed to mind. He allowed me to hang off from his arms while he walked and let me fiddle around with his helmet. He was generous and let me tug him around all over the place, including that creepy, hellish (but to me, heavenly) amusement park where I simply liked to wander about. I can't even begin to count how many times I dragged him around with me to all of the different worlds. Such sweet memories.

Our original pact was simple; if I was his friend, he'd give me protection. I wondered if he planned on practically becoming my father. My dad…hmm. Pyramid was a good enough parent. He just couldn't cook, that's all. But aside from that, he took care of me and even tucked me into bed. I felt no remorse when I murdered my real father. I just couldn't let Henry know that.

So, as I crawled out of his bathroom wall for the umpteenth time, I reminded myself to get Henry that stain remover someday. I got up to my feet, fixed my frazzled hair, and knocked on the bathroom to let him know that I was visiting (and needed a good sandwich). I didn't want to scare him, anyways.

I opened the door and saw Henry in his living room, frantically pacing back and forth. He mumbled a 'come in' and I did, raising an eyebrow at his odd behavior. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"My parents, without my consent, are coming over this afternoon and I…I suppose I should say 'hello' first."

To say the least, that was interesting. "Hi…? Do you need me to help with something?"

"I'm just trying to pick this place up a bit."

I looked around. "Man, you don't even have a single speck of dust on your coffee table or your photographs, everything is picked up, and you think that this isn't good enough?"

"Not really, no," he said.

"It's because you're dad is coming over, isn't it?"

He paused in dusting off his bookshelf and was silent for a bit before he mumbled, "I guess so."

"Do you want to impress him?"

He turned around and shrugged his shoulders. "I…I don't know. Maybe?"

I smiled and said, "No, you do know. You want his acceptance, right? Don't lie. I've been guilty of it for years, even if I am sounding like a smart-ass right now."

"No, you're not, I just want him to like my apartment."

"I have a feeling that if he has any taste in furnishings whatsoever then he'll be fine with your home, Henry. Trust me, you don't need to dust anymore. So what time are the coming over?"

"Five minutes."

"Oooh…then I suggest you put the duster away. Anyway, do you want me to leave? I feel like I've imposed enough."

"No, please stay," he said. "I feel like you can make things go smoother. Everything's all awkward whenever I'm alone with them. My mom won't bring up embarrassing stories or talk about me when I was five."

"You sure I wouldn't just make things stranger? I am, after all, your little 'girlfriend.'" I jested and exaggerated the last word.

"Yeah, but Mom won't bug me anymore."

When he passed me, I could practically feel his anxiety radiating off of him. So he wanted me around so that his mom would give him an easier time? It was the least I could have done. I apparently had good timing. It would have been bad if I had arrived and his folks were already over. I never really contemplated that because Henry never had anybody over. He was a loner and I think that I was his only friend, which was depressing to say. He never talked about anybody else with any sentimental recollection and his communication skills made him feel awkward because he wasn't very good at socializing. I think that he liked the fact that I didn't really care about that.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang the moment Henry closed the door to his laundry room. He took in a deep breath (which didn't calm down his nerves much) and opened up the door.

"Hi Mom," he said and was surprised when his mom threw her arms around him and talked to him in a (what I deem to be) 'motherly' voice. I wanted to laugh when she kissed him on the side of the face but I would have only made things worse for Henry.

"I haven't seen your apartment in such a long time!" she exclaimed and they both entered. "I always wond-" she saw me standing near the bookshelf and I smiled "-oh, you didn't tell me Terra would be here! Hi, it's been a while!"

"A week?" I said, but laughed and approached them. "It's good to see you too."

His mom started to talk about random things and I stood beside Henry. He whispered to me, "Hope you don't mind being a distraction."

"Not in the slightest. You give me food, remember?"

"Could you help me cook?"

"Sure, I'm somewhat of a chef. What're we making?"

"Marinated chicken and pasta. Why are we still whispering?"

"I really don't know why," I said and giggled. He smiled back.

"Are you two even listening?" his mother said in a jokingly voice and put her hands on her hips.

I saved both of us by saying, "Anyone wanna help with dinner? It's chicken and pasta tonight." Maybe it was just my goofy smile that made her forget what she was talking about, but Henry's talkative mother and sulking father agreed.

About twenty minutes in, I was slightly surprised when Mrs. Townshend said, "Henry, have you been scratching yourself again?"

Henry wasn't usually the type of person who showed much emotion, but this time, I could tell that he was thinking 'oh shit.' "It's fine, Mom-"

"No, this shouldn't be starting up again." She grabbed hold of his arm and rolled his sleeve up to his elbow, where I saw he had many freshly-made gashes that had probably only closed up on their own this morning. They were still red and raised.

"Mom, it's fine, I took care of it-"

"No, come with me," she said and proceeded to drag him down the hallway and to the bathroom against his will. "I can't believe this started up again. It's been ten years."

"What going on?" I asked his father and saw him pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Henry has a couple problems. When he was a kid, he used to subconsciously scratch himself whenever he was stressed, over-worked, nervous, etcetera. He scarred himself a lot in those years." He crossed his arms. "We took him to a doctor, but it only made things worse. He finally stopped when he was seventeen, but I guess it started up again." He cursed to himself and crossed his arms.

"I knew that he did that, I just didn't know it was that bad," I said. "What's got him so worked up?" _Anticipating you,_ I thought.

"I'd ask you, but neither of us knows."

"Should go help him? I don't think your wife realizes he's like…what? Thirty?"

"He's twenty-seven," he corrected. "I'd just leave them be. If Henry's a man then he'll stand up for himself."

I shot him a glare and he caught it, then sighed. I could hear Mrs. Townshend's voice through the door. "I can't believe this Henry," she said. "I don't understand. I mean, doesn't this hurt?"

"Yes."

"Look, why are you doing this…this…self-mutilation?" When she got no reply, she sighed and said, "Just hold still."

"Mom, I really do-"

"Hold still," she said sternly. "God, you really need to put some weight on. I can see your ribs through your back."

I deduced that there must have been something wrong with that lady. Did she take his shirt off or something? She seemed almost…obsessive. No wonder Henry wanted me to stay.

"You need a doctor again," she said. "How long has this been going on?"

"Mom, I can't pay for a doctor-"

"How _long_?" she said again in a more stern voice.

"…I don't know, a week? I-I-I don't know, just please, can you leave me alone? I don't like this."

"Then you'll hate me afterwards. Turn around."

"The hell…?" I mumbled to myself. "Is everything okay back there?" I yelled.

"Everything's fine," Mrs. Townshend replied. "God, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you were cutting yourself with a knife. Just _why_ do you do this to yourself? It's got to be obsessive. I hope it's not Terra."

"Terra? No, she hasn't done anything. She's fine, Mom, trust me."

"You seem to have her over a lot."

"Mom, she's my friend, and I'm twenty-seven. Just…stop this, please."

"You can't take care of yourself," she replied. "All this scratching and scarring. I told you that this would happen when you moved out. You should have roomed with a friend. Oh wait, I'm sorry. You never put in the effort to actually _talk_ to people and get to know them."

"I have with Terra…."

"Oh, what? You're going to have a girl living in your apartment now?"

"No, she's just a _friend_ Mom. She lives on her own, okay?"

"Yes, and I want to ask you why your first friend is a woman and not a man."

"There's nothing wrong with her. And she's not my first, I've had…others…."

"Like who?"

"…Well, there was Larry and Smoke."

"Those were _dogs_ Henry."

Henry didn't say anything back and they were quiet for a long time.

Great…so Henry came from a completely messed-up family too. His father hated him and his mother was obsessive. Quite frankly, she was a bitch too from what I could hear.

When she finally let Henry go, he kept his arms wrapped around himself as if he had been violated in some manner and he looked extremely uncomfortable as well as startled. Once his mother started to talk again and once he was close enough, I whispered, "Are you okay?"

He shook his head.

"What she do?"

"Took my shirt off. I feel besmirched."

Besmirched? That was an adjective that I personally never imagined anyone ever using.

* * *

><p>Finally, everybody left at around seven. His mother was really weird.<p>

My friend let out a sigh of relief and started to pick up the plates. "You're the only person I've ever met that I actually feel comfortable talking to," Henry said.

The comment caught me off guard. "I am? I mean…thanks."

"I never want to have them over because of _that_. I don't know why she treats me like that."

"I bet that she was really sad when her son moved out."

"She was. She was mad at me, too. And on top of that, she doesn't understand that I just…don't like talking to people." I could see his frustration as he threw the plates into the sink and began to scrub them clean rather hastily. "I never have. I don't like it. You're fine, but I'm just…at my limit for social interaction for the week"

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No, please stay. I like you."

I smiled and chuckled a bit. "Glad I can help, though it seems to be mostly inadvertently, and not by much, either."

"I don't care, you're not the one bugging me about things I don't have much control over."

"Which reminds me, what's got you so worked up? Seeing your parents?"

He nodded his head.

"It really would cause you to do that?" When he nodded his head again, I figured that he didn't want to talk anymore. After catching a couple glimpses of the bandages on his arms and hands, I decided to help him with the dishes by letting me wash them and having him dry them.

* * *

><p>We watched the news for a while once we finished cleaning up. "I don't understand it," I said. "All what they have on the news is just bad, bad, and more bad information. Seriously, this is ridiculous. They talked about a murder, a missing dog that was found strangled, the horrible economies of the world, an outbreak of E. coli in Ethiopia…really, why don't they ever talk about light-hearted things, like the new panda was born at the zoo? Everybody loves pandas."<p>

Henry started to laugh.

"Stupid news people, making us all depressed and whatnot. Talk about the panda, not which celebrity is pregnant. Sheesh. I don't freaking care that that person had liposuction!"

Henry proffered out the remote control to me and I understood what he was tacitly saying.

"Thank god. Let's watch Animal Planet."

"I don't really watch the news anyway," he said so quietly that I could barely understand what he said.

"Me neither. Dad always watched religious stuff. He never wanted me to watch things like Animal Planet or Discovery Channel. He claimed that they 'were too secular.' Heh, well guess what, old man. I've seen my god before and you haven't, so there." I glanced over at Henry and said, "Sorry about that…please excuse my little rant."

"It's okay," he softly said. "Are you talking about Pyramid?"

"Uh-huh."

"Is he actually a god?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. He is in my view." I sank back into the couch and watched the herd of wildebeest cross a river. Knowing that they would be showing wildebeest getting eaten by crocodiles, I turned the television off and sighed, staring up at the ceiling fan. "Huh…don't really feel like watching animals get eaten alive."

"Me neither."

* * *

><p><strong>Such an abrupt ending for a chapter.<strong>

**It appears that EVERYBODY in the Silent Hill world is messed up. Henry doesn't actually have that sort of self-mutilation problem (as far as I know), it's just something I wanted to include because I'm evil like that.**

**I'm going to start replaying Silent Hill Origins soon. I started before, but those weird monsters that keep their butts up in the air and drag their heads on the ground just stressed me out too much because I can't freaking get away from them. And then those weird monsters that look like they're suffocating in saran wrap? Yeah, well when they attack Travis (the protagonist in SH Origins) it looks like they're humping him, and they drain a lot of health. So I threw the controller down and walked away from it for a month XD**

**So I'm going to play it again. One of the reasons is because the melee weapons include drip stands, television sets, toasters, typewriters, meat cleavers, etc. and it's fun to go around an abandoned insane asylum wielding a drip stand :D**


	28. Chapter 27

**The last dream that Tetsu mentions in the first paragraph was actually a dream that I had, except PH didn't really say anything. It was still funny XD I plan on making a comic of it sometime.**

**Also, I've been playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent. If you thought Silent Hill was scary, then you should definitely play this game. It's the scariest freaking thing I've ever played and it's horrendously AMAZING. It's scarier than Silent Hill, in my opinion. Anyway, I got to the part where there're the torture rooms and whatnot and some of the rooms have graphic descriptions as to how to use the torture devices. (One of them included a hollow brass cow that you stuff somebody inside and cook them to death with a campfire beneath the cow O_O) So I've been rather inspired by it lately and you'll probably find a few relevant things to Amnesia in this story from now on (i.e. how the Cult sacrificed some people. Burning them at a stake just wasn't good enough for me :P )**

**Turns out that cooking somebody inside of a brass cow was actually a real method of torture and execution O_O I didn't know it was a real thing, I thought that it was just something the developers came up with D: I mean, they're sickos anyway just for making a game like that (WHICH I LOVE!), but really? I mean…REALLY? People actually DID that to other people…less than 150 years ago?**

**Oh gawd…I just can't get over how freakishly scary Amnesia is…that's why it's so darn amazing, one of he best games I've ever played. Silent Hill still remains my favorite, however :)**

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><p>I had a couple of strange dreams that night. The first was of a stick figure running away from a gigantic dragon yelling, "OH SHIT!" The second involved Henry, an iguana, and salami and I can't even remember what the hell it was about. All what I knew was it that it was weird. The third was about some man who kept on asking me, "Have you seen a little girl? Short, black hair…." The annoying thing was that he wouldn't shut up. Then I dreamt that some man with a fire axe was fighting Pyramid. The guy grabbed onto Pyramid's skirt and ripped it off (and he doesn't wear underwear). Pyramid yelled, "Oh crap!" and ran out of the double doors. Thankfully, I woke up from that one when I heard Henry in the kitchen again at seven in the morning.<p>

"Mornin'," I said and stretched as I sat upright. "Ever have iguanas and salami in the same dream before?"

He turned and gave a funny look with a wry smile.

"That's what I thought. Somehow I managed both."

He chuckled a bit and shook his head before he turned around and pulled out a bottle of chocolate milk from his refrigerator.

"Are you okay?" I asked, noting that he still hadn't said anything from the previous night. When he nodded his head to say 'yes,' I knew that something was wrong. "You sure? You're not talking."

Henry sat down at his counter but moved the chair so that he was facing me. He took in a breath to say something, but then decided to remain quiet.

"You know, I can sort of tell when you're lying."

He glanced at me for a second before looking back down at the ground.

_It's because of your parents_. "I won't question you anymore. Maybe you just need a day to yourself. You know, relax and have some fun or something."

He nodded his head without looking at me.

I knew that he was upset. While most people showed it through body language (whether on purpose or inadvertently), Henry always seemed to have shown it through behavior. I knew that it was normal for him to be quiet and shy, but for him to not say anything at all meant that he wasn't going to be alright for the rest of the day. We were both quiet for a long time before I said, "I won't make you say anything, you know."

He gave a small yet fake smile and looked at the walls for a moment with a silence so deep that it appeared as if I could have cut into pieces with a kitchen knife. I didn't like it when he was like this, but I was his friend and if I couldn't help him out, then I could at least honor the fact that he wanted to be silent.

Then he surprised me when he said, "I'm sad because…my mom thinks that you're troubling me, which you're not and now she doesn't like you. And she doesn't want me to be with you, even though you're technically my first friend and she's just so…." He didn't know how to finish his sentence.

"Bipolar?" I suggested.

"I swear she is."

"Well hey, I'd be a bad friend if I let somebody completely turn our lives into a soap opera or stupid drama. I don't like drama," I said and stood up. "Always too cliché and takes away from a good story's real goodness, unless if it was meant to be like that. Have you ever seen _General Hospital_? That's totally what we don't need to happen in real life. Of course, everybody's always having a gun pointed at them or having sex with some other character in the show, but I guess that's not really relevant. Anyway, you working today?"

He nodded and I caught a glimpse of a real smile from him. I started to put the sleeper-sofa back together but stopped when he surprised me (even more this time) by asking me, "Will you move in with me?"

I gave him a bewildered expression.

To dispel the awkwardness, he started to talk at a hundred miles an hour. "I mean, that's not what…I mean, I don't want you to be my girlfriend or anything, it's just that I know that you don't have any other place to go and you're here a lot and I was wondering if you wanted to move in because I've been having these dreams about you freezing to death in an alleyway and it's just…I-I-I-"

"Whoa, slow down pal," I said, held up my hands, and smiled.

"I'm a little tired of coming home to an empty apartment. That's what I've been doing for the past four or five years."

My smile broadened and I thought for a moment. "I'll think about it, okay? Right now I've got a lot going on, but I'll let you know soon."

He smiled and let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps once everything was over, I would be able to finish up school, go to college, get a job in Ashfield, and help him pay rent. Plus get him that stain remover…why did I keep on forgetting?

I was watching the news while Henry was off at work. Aside from a declining stock market, I was surprised to find myself in the news. I was labeled as a 'missing person,' and apparently I've been labeled as that since yesterday.

The news reporter continued, "…The search for missing person Tetsu Morris has yielded no evidence as of yet. Again, police are searching for a seventeen-year-old high school student about five feet and eight inches tall, approximately one hundred and forty pounds with well-built arms and chest with red hair." - my school picture appeared on the screen (I looked very dismal) - "She is wanted by the police for questioning and is a suspect in the local murders that have been happening lately in the Silent Hill and Ashfield area. There is a reward of twenty thousand dollars for anyone who finds her, as well as an additional thousand for any information on her. More news to follow."

"Well…shit," I said, then sighed. "Guess I can't take up Henry's offer just yet. Bummer, that guy was going to feed me every night. And what do you know, lucky me…I'm very unusual looking. I stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe if I dyed my hair…? No, that wouldn't work. Not many people look like me."

I set the remote down and looked outside of the windows to the rest of downtown South Ashfield. It was such a pretty city. Unfortunately, I had a feeling that I couldn't stay long. I got up and walked into Henry's bedroom, where I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote:

_Hey Hen, it's me, Tetsu. I was just watching the news earlier today and it turns out that I'm wanted by the police. Lucky me, eh? Guess what…they've got a reward on anybody who finds me. I wish that I could say yes to moving in with you, but I'm afraid I can't. Just not now, but maybe later. A week or a month from now, I don't know. Anyway, I have to go. I've a feeling that if I linger around any longer, you'll get into some serious trouble. I'm endangering you just by being here, so I'm not quite sure when I'll be back, but it's going to be a while, okay?_

_Love you always ^_^_

_Your friend forever, Tetsu_

_P.S. I don't know how to correctly write a letter. Sorry if the ending part (is it called the 'sincerely' part?) is all messed up._

"Love you always?" I mumbled to myself. "Well, I'm sure he won't take that the wrong way. He'll know what I mean." I folded up the letter and walked back to the kitchen, where I gave it a kiss for good luck and set it on the countertop.

I wrapped my bandana around my head, took some of Henry's food (what can I say? A little bit of bread goes a long way), grabbed my bag, and walked out of the door. When I passed by Eileen Galvin's apartment, I remembered that she had seen what I looked like; my hair, eyes, and everything. I hoped that she wouldn't report to the police. One of the last things I wanted was to get Henry in trouble.

I heard a strange hissing noise and my head started to hurt shortly after. At the same time, I heard someone whisper, "Subway…Bergen Street, platform 3...Silent Hill…."

"Bergen Street platform 3 in the Silent Hill subway," I repeated like a parrot without even realizing. Almost like a zombie, I blandly said, "I guess that I need to go there."

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><p><strong>This is what writer's block tends to gives me ;_; please forgive me, this chapter isn't as good as it should have been, especially since it took me a month and a half to write FOUR pages.<strong>

**Bergen Street platform 3 is the subway platform that Heather Mason takes to get back home in Silent Hill 3 :D**

**Oh yeah, and I played Silent Hill 2 and 3 over again while procrastinating on this chapter. Not much else to say…oh wait, the transform costume Heather can get in SH3 is probably the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Forget about the monsters, that CUTSCENE when you equip the transform costume is just completely non-Silent Hill! Heather looked like some sort of space-bug flight attendant D: **

**Ah, Konami was just proving that nothing is too outrageous for a game :) And THAT is one of the many reasons why I love Silent Hill, because everything in Silent Hill apparently makes sense XD**

**I also learned that unlimited submachine guns make good friends :D**


	29. Chapter 28

**I must express my deepest sorrows in not uploading for the past three months or so TT_TT I kept side-tracking myself, especially considering that I started to work on my book again (hadn't touched it in a year lol XD) and I've had school. But on the bright side, at least I've written nine or ten chapters of my book :D It's called Chaos Theory, in case you're wondering :)**

**So yeah, I made up for my lateness by having Tetsu go crazy with a shovel. It's…actually quite an interesting thing, to say the least. She goes insane :D But I should warn you, it got really…really really freakin' gory.**

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><p>To say the least, the subway was rather creepy that day. Surprisingly, there was a very small amount of people, mostly businessmen dressed in their expensive black tuxedos too engrossed with the screens of their laptops to care about the rest of what was going around them…which to say, wasn't much to begin with. Feeling a little unsettled despite the small amount of people around me, I decided to sit down on a stray bench and looked at the dim fluorescent lights. One of them was flickering on and off and irritated the hell out of me.<p>

Being underground felt a little strange. It made me think to myself, _What would it be like to be buried underneath the ground in a coffin? Certainly tighter and more claustrophobic…it's a little creepy in this subway. _I was a little relieved when I heard the long, droning noise of a train come closer. I stood up, gathered my belongings, and watched as the subway screeched to a halt. It was going to take a little while to get back to Silent Hill and I had nothing to entertain me, but at least it was better than running for one's life, right?

The doors opened and I stepped inside, sitting down on the nearest seat. I watched as another man boarded the car that I was in and he sat adjacent from me. The doors closed, the subway started to roll again, and I held onto the seat to prevent myself from falling over at the sudden start. Some moments passed before the slightly robust man stood up and sat next to me. "So," he began, "where are you from, lil' lady?"

I gave him a funny look and decided not to reply, but instead scooted away a bit and smiled slightly.

"Ah, what's a quiet lil' girl like you doing all by yourself in a dark and lonely subway? You know, somebody like you could get hurt." He grabbed onto my wrist, but I instinctively stood up and pulled my hand out of his grasp with enough force to pull him off the seat and fall onto the ground.

He cursed, stood back up, and I said, "Touch me again and I'll hurt you."

The robust man laughed and said. "Girl, you're so pretty that I would fuck you in a heartbeat."

He came after me again quickly and tried to grab onto my arm - why was I such a bad luck magnet? - but I blocked it with one arm, got into a defensive stance, and did a side-piercing kick with my foot straight into his abdomen. He keeled over onto the ground and the moment his knees slammed into the metal floor, I did a front snap-kick into his face and he fell backwards. For a second he was stunned and didn't move, but then he yelled out a curse at me and curled into a ball, holding his rapidly bleeding face with his hand. That was when I saw his seriously crooked nose and missing teeth lying on the ground, scattered like little white and bloody dots.

For a second my eyes widened at how I had so easily ruined his ugly face and I was about to say something, but instead I closed my mouth and walked to the other side of the car, where I nonchalantly sat down and listened to his incessant and childish whimpering as if nothing had ever happened.

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><p>"What a rotten world," I mumbled and stepped out into the fresh air, free from being trapped in the underground transportation system. It was a cloudy day and the temperature was gradually becoming colder thanks to the arrival of autumn. The trees hadn't yet changed their color, but no doubt the entire town of Silent Hill would be overflowing with tourists from neighboring areas to see the colorful foliage in a couple of weeks.<p>

I looked around and saw the Daisy Villa Apartments nearby. I noted how shabby and poor the condition of the building looked before I walked past it and heard someone say by the mailboxes, "Not much besides some boxes, a card…a letter from a dead wife."

I made a funny face at hearing the last part and I looked over at the young, blond-haired lady looking through the mail. "Where the hell are my test scores? Ugh…I bet that the school hasn't even mailed them yet." The thin girl angrily closed the mailbox and saw me looking at her oddly. She simply shrugged her shoulders and walked past me, then noticed my clothing. "Nice coat," she said.

"Thanks…?"

"What? Don't take compliments?" She smiled and put her hands on her hips.

"No no, just…thanks."

"Lucky. All my coats are brown. I can never find a black one."

Unsure of how to respond, I simply smiled.

"Well, you have yourself a good day." She walked away and disappeared into the bad-looking apartment building.

_You'll learn how to react correctly to people eventually,_ A voice in my head said. I imagined Pyramid Head or some sort of shinigami following me behind my back. In response, I said aloud, "Gee, thanks. You know, sometimes I-"

"_It's not really your fault. Any human who has had limited positive social interaction with others wouldn't know either."_

Frowning, I retorted, "YYEAAH what about Henry?"

"_He's new."_

I sighed and started to walk forward. "Ah whatever. For the meantime, let's just - in the words of Sol Stein - move like a duck; calm on the surface, paddling like hell underneath. Wait…how did I go from awkward situation to ducks?"

"_You're one of a kind, Tetsu."_

"I know," I said cheerily, then noticed a couple other people looking at me strangely. "SCHIZOPHRENIA!" I yelled. "A very unforgiving and relentless condition. Not my fault."

They simply backed away and I tried my hardest not to laugh. How amusing.

"Are you okay?" I heard somebody ask.

Without looking at them, I replied, "Oh yeah, I'm fine, I'm just talking to my imaginary friend." When I looked over at the voice, I saw that it was a familiar-looking blond-haired man with a young daughter with him. I had seen them at Rosewater Park. He was giving me a concerned look.

"Oh, um…hi," I said.

He looked me over for a second. "Have I seen you somewhere before? You look very familiar."

I shrugged and smiled. "Yeah, well, always remember a redhead, right?"

"Have you been in a movie recently? I could I sworn I've seen you on TV at some point."

With that, my heart jumped up into my throat and I shook my head, deciding to play it off coolly. "Nope, never once been on a television show before. Wish I could."

The look in his eyes told me that he remembered how I was antagonized on the news for being a wanted serial killer, thief, and over crazy criminal. At least he was nice about it and said, "Oh, never mind. Sorry." When he walked away and thought that I wasn't looking, he pulled out his cell phone. I'm pretty sure that he was calling 911 (the police).

"Whoa shit, gotta go," I muttered to myself and briskly walked away, finding myself going down Katz Street. I took refuge in a quaint little alleyway (yes, quaint, because alleyways had officially become my friends) and waited as I heard sirens go off.

For some unfathomable reason, I had the utmost intensive desire and urge to burst out into laughter. I obsessively scratched myself behind the head, gradually falling into my own state of euphoric insanity. I did not know why I became utterly insane in that moment…perhaps it was the knowledge that if somebody tried to hurt me, I could hurt them back. When I found a shovel, I only became happier.

It was an old and rusty one just laying there in the alley, half-covered in mud, half-covered in dust. I picked it up and inspected the sharp edges. The gesture caused a crooked and toothy grin to show up on my face and I started to walk forward, dragging it across the ground as I did so.

Unbeknownst to me, the police car had actually spotted from afar and followed me. I was heading towards it when the lone policeman stepped out of his car with his hand on the hilt of his gun. He watched for a second to see what I was doing, then he got real worried when he saw the crazy look in my eyes with an insane smile painted across my face. I was walking in a funny manner, slow, sluggish, and almost as if I had a slight limp, but it was all from my head.

As I slowly stalked towards him, I sang - and I honestly don't know why, but the compulsion was just too great - in a creepy and sing-song like voice, "Take the knife, cut the life, take the knife, cut the life, bag the blood, slice the heart, squish the brain, break the spine, dissect the rest…"

He made a face as if he was either disgusted or extremely disturbed (probably both, I was a disturbing person to begin with, never mind have a crazy-fit while holding a shovel) and he took out his gun, demanding me to halt.

Instead, I turned on my heels and started to walk away, satisfied when I heard him begin to follow me. I continued to sing my crazy lullaby happily, but then the euphoric feeling left and I felt sad. My smile disappeared and I put my back against a wall, then slid down it and crossed my legs.

"…she's exhibiting very odd behavior," the policeman said into his radio as he got closer.

I started to cry, but it was all fake. Sure, I felt randomly sad, but if I looked like a damsel in distress then he'd get closer, and closer, and closer…then I could slice him up….

I pulled my knees up into my chest and fake-wept into them, shivering violently as the man in black finally got a mere two feet away from me. He crouched down to my level and asked, "Are you alright, miss?"

I said nothing, but instead slowly raised my head to look at him with a tear-streaked face. When he turned his head to speak into his radio, I kicked him in the face and watched him fly backwards and roughly hit the ground.

I quickly grabbed my shovel. He was up on his feet by the time I readied it, but he was too slow to dodge the spade as the blunted end slammed into the side of his head. I bashed his face again, stunning him to the point where he was laying on his back on the ground.

He was dazed and probably had a cracked skull, considering that I could never know my own strength. While he was down there in an agonized trance, I placed the tip of the shovel's spade on the soft part of his lower neck, right above where the two clavicle bones attach to the sternum. I smiled crazily, saying, "…cut the life…" and then stomped down on the shovel as if I were digging a hole.

The metal penetrated through the soft flesh, digging so deep that it only stopped because it had hit the vertebrae of the neck. The body convulsed and twitched as the foreign object entered it, making the hands automatically reach for it, however they failed. I pulled the shovel out and watched a spray of bright-red blood from the severed arteries leak out as if it were tainted water from a garden hose. My grin broadened and I stomped on the shovel again, twisting it back and forth a little bit, grinding the bones until I heard them snap apart from the pressure.

Now decapitated, I whacked the severed head with the shovel and it slammed into the side of the concrete wall, cracking as it made contact. I looked back at the dead body with blood pouring out at such a fast rate that I could see the skin gradually become paler and paler. I started to rip and tear and slice the fingers and toes off, then moved up to the hands and feet. Enjoying myself, I quickly stomped on the joints of the elbows with the shovel and amputated the lower arms, then dislocated the upper arms. Hearing the delightful pop of the bones being torn out of the sockets made me laugh and chuckle.

After a couple minutes, I was breathing heavily and looking down at what remained of the dismembered and mangled body; a torso and two legs that stopped at the knees where I had cut the rest off. I was standing in a pool of blood and got down on my knees, putting my hands in the warm liquid as I laughed. "How do you like that now?" I hissed. "See what you did to yourself? It's not my fault, you made me…you made me!"

I started to cut open the body with the shovel's spade, even taking the liberty of personally reaching in with my bare hands and pulling the chest open so that I could see the bloody ribcage, static heart, and still lungs. I was insane as I grabbed onto the heart and tilted my head at it, saying in an innocent voice, "It's really soft…why's it not stone?"

I sat down on the blood-soaked ground and put my back against the wall, flipping the powerful organ in my red hands. I squeezed it and watched the remaining blood slid out of the hollow chambers and onto my lap. My fingers glided over the soft and red material, then pulled at the tips of the arteries and veins that were jutting out of it. "It's…like a sponge…" I said, then found the sharp nails of my thumbs ripping through the center of it.

It made a couple funny noises, ones of which I cannot describe, but my euphoria returned in the sound hitting my ears. I opened up the chambers of the heart and tore it apart, curious to see what was inside. Nothing but bloody walls of flesh.

Disappointed, I stood up, threw the heart on the ground, and squished it like an ant with my foot. I kneeled back down to the body, then pulled out various organs from as large as the liver to as small as the pancreas. Some of the things that touched my hands burned my skin so I quickly wiped them off in the blood, then ripped out the lungs from underneath the ribs.

The insides were funny-looking and spongy, but nonetheless squishy. They were pretty big and discolored but I quickly got bored with them.

I was so happy making a gory mess on the ground. I dipped my hands back into the blood and started to smear it across the wall, then began to write words on the concrete. In big, red letters, I wrote, "LEAVE ME ALONE." I sang my lullaby and began to scrawl the lyrics across the wall, so content in my perfect insanity…

I was snapped out of my crazed state when someone large and muscular wrapped his arms around my chest and pulled me away from the wall. When he stood up straight, my feet were off of the ground and I was suspended. I began to kick and throw my fists at whomever was holding me, screaming and yelling and thrashing, trying desperately to get out of his grasp.

Pyramid's tetrahedron-shaped helmet hit the back of my head and I blacked out for a second, but quickly came to. He was struggling hard to keep me in his arms, especially when I started to claw at his flesh with my nails. His skin and blood collected underneath my fingertips and I left long, bloody claw-marks on his forearms. I continued to kick him and writhed incessantly, screeching for him to let me go.

My friend stayed where he was and didn't release me, even when I had ripped the skin from his elbows and exposed the bone. To stop me from screaming, he pressed his hand to my mouth but I bit it. My sharp teeth sank into his flesh and I could taste his blood in my mouth. It was salty and metallic and I swallowed it.

We were there for the longest time. I was some mad animal while he as the calm one who took the beating from me and said nothing as my maniacal fit passed, however I could hear him moan and grunt from time-to-time.

Finally, I calmed down and my senses returned. A wide look of fear appeared in my eyes and I let go of Pyramid's hand. He set met back down on the ground and kept his arms around me as if to prevent me from running off. I was utterly terrified at what I had done and he knew that as he began to stroke my hair in a calming manner.

I looked down at the ground and gripped Pyramid's arm in fear.

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><p><strong>You know what I realized a few days ago? Tetsu's Irish. She has no luck of the Irish whatsoever, in fact, I believe it's the opposite for her XD "Hey look, a shamrock D'OH GOD INDIGESTION."<strong>

…**cuz indigestion works like that.**

**I'm Irish for those of you who don't know, please don't be mad at me :3 I'm also German. And French-Canadian :D Hooray for mutts! XD**

**( Apparently Tetsu's Irish because her hair's red and she had green eyes (someone told me that green eyes are Irish *shrug*)…)**


	30. Chapter 29

**Again, I much apologize for such profoundly delayed updates. I've been caught up with school work, artwork, and book work XD**

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><p>Pyramid was standing on the other side of my bedroom as I sat in the corner, hugging my stuffed animal tightly to my chest as I slowly rocked myself back and forth and wept quietly. I could see Spike poking his head in from the door but Pyramid gestured for him to leave. I could see the shadow of Mannequin and saw her standing there beside the dog, but I didn't want to see them. I had been violent towards them, even going to the extent of punching Pyramid several times to get him to leave. He was stubborn and kept watch over me.<p>

I wondered why. Maybe he was ensuring himself that I wasn't going to hurt myself, or kill myself. I wouldn't blame him; I was in a full-fledged mental breakdown. Worse yet, I was a monster. My sanity was becoming thinner and thinner with every miserable day that passed by.

What mental problem did I have? Was I psychotic? Bi-polar? Simply insane? I didn't know and it scared me. It meant that I wouldn't be able to trust myself as much or at all.

Pyramid slowly began to approach me, but I screeched at the top of my raspy lungs, "GO. AWAY! JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!"

He looked like he flinched and went back to the door, but it only annoyed and angered me. I picked up an object from the bookshelf near me (I'm not sure what it was, but it was solid, sharp, and heavy) and whipped it at him. He didn't catch it and it ricocheted off of his lower thorax. He keeled over a bit but stayed there defiantly until I started to throw everything at him in a brief fit of fiery rage; books, dolls, various decorations…

Finally, he let out a pained and sad-sounding moan and left, closing the door behind himself in a rather sullen manner. I let out my breath and screamed in agitation, sitting back down and gripping my head with my hands. I panted heavily and became quiet, allowing the silence of my room to calm myself down.

When I let go of my hair, I realized that it hurt and I had been practically pulling it out. I shook my head and grabbed my stuffed animal to hug.

I had a serious problem. I probably needed a doctor but nobody would help me anyway. I'd suffer through this entire stressful situation like this.

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><p>Hours passed before Pyramid entered the room again. By this time, I was sitting on my bed with a piece of plastic that I had broken off from a pen I found near the books and was scraping up my hands with it. I'm not sure why, I just had the strangest urge to see blood. There was something abnormally calming about the dark redness of that life-giving substance, and as I stared at it, I couldn't help but consider all of the things that it contained. Red blood cells, white blood cells, helper T-cells, iron, oxygen, salt…so much all packed into that wonderful, glorious liquid.<p>

Pyramid walked over to me and roughly grabbed onto my hand, took the piece of bloody plastic, and tossed it away.

I said nothing as he sat down beside me. He inspected my bleeding hands and held them, breathing slowly yet deeply. He shook his helmeted head and looked away. That one gesture was enough for me to realize how much I had wronged in the past four hours and I threw my arms around him. I started to say a slew of incoherent apologies, all of which only turned into pitiful sobs. He put one arm around me but kept his head facing the opposite direction.

I was such a pathetic bitch.

"I'm so sorry," I squeaked out. "I didn't mean to hurt you, please Pyramid, _I'm so sorry_. I don't hate you, I love you…please don't be mad at me…"

He grunted and ran his fingers through my red hair again.

I kissed the side of his rusty helmet. "Please Dad, I'm sorry, I didn't know what I was doing…"

He turned his head back in my direction at me calling him Dad and he slowly nodded. We suddenly had a mutual understanding of the other.

I sat with him there for a while until I stood up and walked over to Spike. I hugged him and he licked my face several times. "I'm sorry there's something wrong with me," I said.

Mannequin crawled over to me but I gently pushed her away. "I'm just…I'm just going to go for a walk, okay?" I started to walk away with shame hanging over my head like a thick cloud.

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><p>The room was more like a large morgue than anything else. It was dark and reeked of blood and death with bloody gurneys carrying dead bodies draped in blood-stained shrouds. I walked into the morbid room, the soles of my shoes clanging softly against the metal-grated floor. The blood-splattered walls had holes inside of them stuffed with decaying bodies on trays. Their skins were a pale gray and I remembered playing hide-and-seek with Wormy and I had hidden underneath two of the bodies. I wondered, was it sad that I wasn't disturbed by them? Was it sad that hiding underneath those bodies made me smile and giggle, and that it was no different than hiding inside of a bush?<p>

I walked over to one of the bodies and glided my fingertips across the gray forehead. The colorless eyes were open so I decided to close them, only to have them open again. I frowned a bit, staring into the lifeless orbs. They were to forever be open, trapped inside of a corpse and forced to peer out of the skull for all eternity. Never moving, never changing, just staring ahead at the same ceiling forever and never being able to see anything else but what kept it imprisoned….

I pulled the tray out and found Wormy laying in the back. His long back end was resting inside of another hole but when he saw me, he slithered out like a snake and looked up at me with his mangled face. I smiled and said, "I think I know why you and I played hide-and-seek so much." I knelt down to his level and he raised his torso off of the ground like a king cobra. "I bet you were teaching me how to run and hide, huh?"

His neck made a couple popping sounds as he tilted his head at me.

I chuckled a bit. "Thanks, you were making me get used to all sorts of weird things in case something bad happened. Right?"

He did nothing but instead half-dragged, half-slithered across the room to a different hole in the wall, then entered it and disappeared. I decided to crawl in after him.

The stench of dead body and decayed flesh didn't bother me as I was engulfed in darkness. I felt my way around the tight space, crawling over human bones and various other remains until I turned a corner and saw a dim light greeting me. There was a grate over it.

The space was too small for me to turn around and kick it (especially considering that my shoulders were broader than most men's), so I punched it with my fist instead. The barrier snapped off but instead of hearing it clang loudly against the ground, it splashed into liquid. I guessed that Wormy had put it back up to see if I could get it off. I supposed that that would be useful if I needed to get away from somebody in a rush.

I slid out of the hole and landed in the hallway filled with blood. Blood was like water to me; harmless and normal. I stood up and found myself waist-deep in the red liquid, but I knew to be careful; sometimes the floor would suddenly drop off into a pool ten feet deep. Of course, my first reaction and instinct was always to take in a breath, hold it, and squeeze my eyes shut, but I still didn't like the sudden feeling of falling, nor getting salty blood in my eyes. I didn't mind if it was in my mouth but I hated it in my eyes.

"Wormy?" I called and started to walk through the hallway. There were crooked paintings of women up on the walls and blood dripped from the saturated ceiling. "Where'd you go, buddy?"

I walked further and saw a small ripple in the blood. I smiled and said, "Come on pal, I know you're there. Quit hiding." I reached out my hand to where he was but instead of him surfacing and acting friendly, he grabbed onto my wrist with his giant-clawed hand and yanked me forward. I yelped as he pulled me underneath and I held my breath, then instinctively kicked him with my foot as hard as I could have.

I resurfaced and gulped in a breath, quickly backing away. "What are you doing?" I yelled, wiping my mouth with my hand, not that it really did anything. "Don't do that again, I don't like that."

My disturbing-looking friend slowly rose out of the blood and showed off his massive claws. For once, I actually felt threatened. Something must have been wrong.

I continued to walk backwards. He must have been joking, he wouldn't have actually _attacked_ me, would he have? But as he slithered closer and closer, I realized that he was purposefully acting hostile.

The first thing I did was practically run up the side of the wall and grab onto the iron bars that were covering the entrance to an air vent. Wormy leaped up out of the water and tried to reach me, but I was up too high and he missed. I shrieked and pulled my legs up higher, then tried to pull the bars off. They were welded on too well.

I looked down and saw the monster swimming underneath, pacing back and forth like a stressed-out animal (or one in serious anticipation) before he decided to jump back up at me. His claws screeched loudly against the wall and sparks flew off from the contact and he gurgled something as he fell back into the blood.

I started to yell for Pyramid. My distressed voice echoed down the long and high-ceilinged hallways, then I continued to scream until my voice ran dry and croaky. Then, finally, after what felt like an unfathomably long amount of time, Pyramid showed up without his giant knife.

The blood swished and swashed as he moved through it with a less than graceful walk, eventually standing and towering over Wormy. The two grunted back and forth for a bit, gurgled, shook heads, and in the end, Wormy slithered away through the blood. Before he disappeared, he looked back at me one more time and waved goodbye with his head down low.

My heart pounding in my ears and my lungs heaving heavily, I was scared stiff and clung onto the bars like a gargoyle clinging to the edge of a skyscraper. I was sweating and shaking a bit. How could my own _friend_ simply go off and attack me like that? He had been my friend since I was ten….

Pyramid reached up, put his hands underneath my arms, and pried me off of the bars, then tried to set me back on the ground. I didn't want to be standing in the blood for fear of something jumping out of nowhere and attacking me, so I continued to hang onto him and curled up so that my feet wouldn't touch the blood. He stood there for a moment as if contemplating what to do, then decided to carry me through one of the walls.

He brought me back to a random room, but I recognized it as one far away from that hallway. This one was equally as dark and grungy but it was more of a dilapidated and nightmarish stripped-down public bathroom where the normal tasks were probably bloody and explosive diarrhea. Lovely image, no?

Pyramid set me back down and I looked around the room. To put it frankly, if death has a scent, that bathroom contained it. But it wasn't just reeking of death, no; there must have been intelligent life forms of mold that somehow genetically engineered themselves grow on RUSTY METAL that was stained with age-old blood. The floor was grated metal with black nothingness underneath, the bathroom stalls were wire mesh with pieces of flesh hanging off of it (not enough to make an actual barrier), and the sinks had decayed, severed heads in them.

Yes, severed heads. They're like normal heads, only severed.

I sighed in relief and sat down on the ground, then put my face in my hands. "Jesus fucking Christ," I murmured. "What the hell was wrong with him?"

Pyramid grunted and I looked up at him. Some of the scars on his body were glowing red and my heart sank.

"What's wrong?" I asked and looked up at him. "Are you mad at me? I'm sorry, I really am, I just couldn't control me, okay? Please don't be mad at me."

He shook his head and heaved out a loud sigh, then started to walk away. When I followed him, he turned around and pointed to the corner. "Stay," he commanded. "Sit."

I put my hands on my hips. "I'm not a dog, you know."

"Behave."

"What? _He_ attacked _me_! What did I do?"

"_Behave_," he said more sternly, then left the room and disappeared.

I stood there for a second before I found myself wandering back to the corner he had pointed to. I sat down there and crossed my arms over my chest, then relaxed upon hearing the absolute silence of the place. "Crazy, crazy, crazy…" I muttered, setting my head against the wall. I then screwed up my face when I realized that Pyramid had just put me in a timeout. "Hey, I'm not a toddler," I said to no one. "I'm eighteen…."

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><p><strong>RUSTY METAL. So villainous.<strong>

**Rusty metal reminds me of rusty spoons. Remember good ol' Salad Fingers? "I like to touch…rusty spoons :D"**

**Creepy in the best way possible.**

…

**I bet that most of you are scratching your head wondering why I wrote down something about Salad Fingers XD**


	31. Chapter 30

**Happy holidays everyone :D Have a good Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanza, or whatever holiday I can't remember right now because my attention span is too short to be pondering about stuff :D This shall be my gift to you all!**

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><p>I couldn't deal with this anymore. I went back to Silent Hill after I came to the realization that I had just been punished by Pyramid. Well, he's called "The Punisher" for a reason, and I had wronged so it was his duty to do that…<p>

Wormy never meant to hurt me, he was only following orders from Pyramid. I had upset him greatly and his leaking emotions meant a plight for me. We had since made up and forgiven the other. Despite that skirmish caused by me, we still loved each other very much. I told him that he needed to rethink how to discipline someone and he had ruffled my hair; one of his most common displays of affection.

I wasn't even sure where I was going. I just took one direction and began to aimlessly walk around as if I was some sort of zombiefied insomniac, except I stayed to the back alleys and the outskirts of the town almost like how a hoodlum would.

It was sunset by the time I decided to sit down. What was the point? I had a goal, but no plan. I wanted a plan but didn't know how to go about making one.

As I rested on a bench in Rosewater Park (okay, I went to a more public place just for a little while) I looked out at the beautiful and vibrant hues painted across Toluca Lake and the sky. I sighed and relaxed. What a crazy life I was leading so far, huh?

I was distracted by a girl on her cell phone who came sauntering by. She sat down on the opposite end of the bench and I recognized her to be the same blond-haired girl I had seen back at the Daisy Villa Apartments. She smiled as she conversed to someone, apparently her father, then turned her phone off and stared off out at the lake.

Dear god, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I wondered why I hadn't noticed that before. Her hair was such an elegant shade of short blond that almost gleamed in the gorgeous sunset. Her body had beautiful curves to it, her face was like looking at a goddess, her eyes were a brilliant shade of blue, her skin was white with freckles dotted about it like splattered paint…I wanted to draw her.

Her clothes were conformed perfectly to her curvaceous body. Her light purple shirt looked like it was comfortably sticking to her with a black design dancing across her breasts. Her denim shorts were short and thin, exposing a stunning pair of slightly muscled legs. Her leather black boots reached up to her knees and she was wearing a silver pendant around her neck.

She was so gorgeous…

"What?" she said, snapping me out of my gaze. I shook my head in embarrassment and turned back to the lake.

"Nothing," I said.

"Hey, I saw you earlier today. By the apartments."

I turned back to her. For some unknown reason, my heart rate increased when I saw her entire face. I had a sudden urge to caress her cheek, to run my fingers through this stranger's hair, to get to know her a little better….

Yup. I'm _that_ cliché, I am seriously that corny. Quite pathetic and non-me, huh? Despite how epically cheesy my description is I'd rather not change it for fear that I cannot create something anymore accurate to what I thought at that precise moment that I had seen her. It wasn't quite love-and-first-sight, but more that I was just highly attracted to her at that moment. Now that I think of it, that setting with the sunset at the lake and just the two of us is such a chick-flick movie scene thing…too bad my circumstances couldn't have been more normal like ordinary people.

"Oh yeah," I said. "I remember you. You complimented me on my coat."

"I sure did," she replied. "Still a nice one."

"Thanks."

"What's your name?"

"Terra," I replied, knowing that my alias was much safer than my real name. "Yours?"

"Heather. What're you doing out here?"

"Ah you know, just sort of chillin'…kind of bored."

"Are you in high school? I don't recognize you."

"Nope, graduated last year," I lied. "I'm in college. You?"

"Eh, I'm a sophomore in high school. Turning sixteen next week."

"That's exciting."

"Not really."

We both smiled at each other. I wanted to kiss her on the lips.

"So…you visiting family?" Heather asked.

"Sort of, Mom and Dad got mad at me because I lost my job. Not like it's my fault, I was freaking laid off. I mean, seriously…you seen the economy nowadays?"

"Bastards, not like you were fired."

"I know, right? I don't really got a place to stay so I figured that this park is okay. You know…benches and whatnot…."

Her jaw almost dropped to the brick pathway beneath our feet at what I had said. "Girl, that ain't right," she said, then stood up. "Come on, you're coming with me."

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><p>"Heather, really, I'll be fine," I said as she ushered me through the door to her apartment. "I mean, we barely even know each other."<p>

"Yeah, but I ain't just gonna leave you out in the cold like that. It's fall time now."

"Who's there?" a curious voice asked and I saw a brown-haired man walk out from behind the corner of the kitchen off to the right.

"Hey Dad, this is Terra. She's staying for the night."

Her father looked at me.

I was standing ramrod straight, obviously uncomfortable. "She pulled me here. Literally."

The middle-aged man smiled warmly, releasing any tension that I had previously felt. His entire frame seem to have brightened at my appearance and he said, "What a surprise! You actually managed to bring home a friend for once."

Heather rolled her eyes. "Yeah right, Dad. She's just staying for the night."

"Okay…" I said.

I felt uncomfortable for many reasons. The main reason was because I had never been sexually attracted to someone before. The second was because I was a stranger staying overnight in a stranger's house. The third was how the hell did her dad not recognize me with my face up all over the news? Maybe it was my bandana.

Always blame the bandanas. They're evil.

"I'm Harry Mason," her father said and stepped out from the kitchen. He tripped over nothing (I'm being serious) and stumbled forward, catching himself on a nearby end table and accidentally knocking the table lamp off onto the floor. Surprisingly the light bulb itself didn't break but the base of it cracked. Even so, he didn't fully regain his balance and he practically ran into Heather.

Heather, being the lovely daughter that she is, stepped off to the side to let him crash into the floor.

I held out my arm and caught the clumsy man effortlessly. I pushed him back up so that he standing straight and gave him a look that clearly showed I was trying my hardest from not laughing my ass off.

"Aw crap," he said, slightly red-faced. "Sorry about that, I'm a bit of a klutz."

"No problem, but…" I failed in trying not to laugh and found myself giggling.

"Sorry again, let me go fix this…" He turned around and picked up the broken item before placing it back on the end table. "Guess I'll need to get a good one."

"Thank god, that one's hideous," Heather said.

"Such a little angel she is, isn't she?" Harry said to me and smiled, instantly brightening up again. He seemed to have immediately forgotten that he tripped in the first place and I had the impression that he must've been quite the character.

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><p>"I don't watch the news," Harry said. "It's so depressing. All what's in the news if bad news. Someone dies, another person is kidnapped, the kidnapped person is found dead, there's a robbery, the government's going to raise taxes on us and cut them for the wealthy, congress is just as bad as listening to each other as usual…I don't like it. So I read weather reports instead."<p>

I munched on a dry piece of pork roast and said, "That's good. I mean…yeah, that's a good thing. Too much bad stuff goes on in the news." I glanced at Heather for a second before returning my attention back to my plate that Harry was generous enough to share with me.

"Did you hear about the girl going around murdering people?" Heather asked. "Didn't see her name or face but I guess she's pretty dangerous. Kind of cool, huh?"

"Heather, she's killing people," Harry said.

"So? That'd be another book for your collection of detective books," Heather said, apparently feeling successful in the sudden curiosity that now glinted in Harry's eyes. "I think it'd be cool to know someone that dangerous."

"Yeah, and if I find you hanging out with a murderer then you'll be grounded for a year," Harry said and chuckled.

"But just how awesome would that be?" Heather exclaimed. "To know a deranged evil person?"

"You need to stop watching those horror movies," Harry replied.

"Freddy's still my favorite."

"Who?" I asked.

Heather looked at me almost as if I were dumb but it was in a rather playful manner. "Freddy, from _Nightmare on Elm Street_. Haven't you ever seen it before?"

"Never heard of it."

"You are a deprived child."

"Apparently so."

"So what are you studying in college?" Harry asked.

"Art," I replied. "I'm majoring in art and getting a minor in French."

"_Parlez-vous français_?" Harry asked, smirking.

"_Oui, mais je parle juste un peu de la français et mon français est terrible, mais je l'aime beacoup_," I replied rapidly, loving the somewhat bewildered look he had.

"I have no idea what you just said. Are you fluent?"

"Not really. I mess up with conjugations all the time."

"I forget all French," Harry admitted as he cut apart a bit of the meat with his knife. I stared at the knife almost longingly for a second before I realized that I would easily come across as weird if they noticed and returned my attention to my plate.

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><p><strong>In case you're all wondering, yes, Tetsu's gay :)<strong>


	32. Chapter 31

**Alright guys, I'm fed up with making you guys wait so long for chapters, so I'm blaring Red Pyramids in my headphones (try listening to it with rain playing in the background, it's pretty awesome) and I am **_**determined**_** to finish this :D**

**I've also gone on a horror craze. All Silent Hills, Dead Space, Amnesia, Let Me In, horror movies, horror games, horror stories, horror everything _ I'm sort of studying it because I want to write horror novels eventually…though apparently it adds to me being a strange person XD**

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><p>"There's a hedgehog in your shoe," I said as I looked at a spiky ball of moving something inside of Heather's shoe. I had a bewildered look towards it. It was absolutely <em>the<em> most random thing I had ever seen, maybe besides a billboard on the way to Ashfield that said, "Cheese King: Over 157 different types of cheese and blood sausage!" Regardless, I had a wry smile towards it.

"Ugh, Pickles always gets lost sometimes," Heather said as she picked up the spiky creature.

"You…have a hedgehog?" I asked.

Heather smiled. "Yeah, wanna hold him?"

"No thanks."

"Here you go."

She handed me the hedgehog regardless and I was careful about the spines. I asked, "Is he your pet?"

"Yeah. I can't have a doggy or a cat or a fish but Dad let me have a hedgehog."

"That's…that's interesting." I raised the creature a little bit and looked him over, then smiled. "Kinda cute."

"So are you," Heather replied.

I looked up at her, almost sharply, and she quickly defended, "Because I like your outfit. I think it's cute."

"Oh…okay." There was a hint of disappointment in my voice.

Heather flopped down on her bed. "So, you can sleep on the floor with Pickles or out in the living room couch."

"Couch is fine," I said. "I might get some weird dreams though so I say somethin' it's nothin'."

"Eh, that's fine," she said, then grabbed a book from underneath her pillow. "Ever heard of this guy named Henry Townsend before?"

I smiled and recognized the book as one of Henry's photography books. "He's a photographer." I suddenly felt like going back to my old friend.

"Yeah, I've always kinda liked his stuff," Heather said and flipped open to a page. "But I notice that he always has some odd stuff in his photos."

"Like what?" I asked as I sat down on her bed. It was so much softer than the one I slept on as a child.

"Like this," Heather replied and showed me the photograph. It was of a park near Toluca Lake. She pointed to a figure in the background that looked like a tall and slim silhouette of a man, but it was faint and tiny. It looked almost like a wraith but it would have been hard to notice from all of the frolicking children playing in the foreground.

I tilted my head at it. "That's odd."

"Then there was this." She flipped the page again.

My heart nearly stopped, to be honest with you. I just wasn't expecting to see a silhouette of Pyramid in the background of a grungy alleyway. It didn't really look like him at first, but after squinting my eyes I knew that that distinct shape of his tetrahedron helmet couldn't possibly be mistaken for anything else. He was a distant shadow facing away from Henry's camera, but he was still there. I wondered if Henry had taken these photographs because he noticed the eerie ghost-like figures in the background or if he was completely oblivious, allowing it to happen out of mere coincidence.

I probably spent a good thirty minutes browsing through the pictures, just taking my time finding the little shadows in the background as if they were Where's Waldo. They were rare to come across but still, they existed on the pages. I stood up and went to the phone in the kitchen, then dialed Henry's number.

At first I screwed up the number, figures, and accidentally called some restaurant which was apparently advertising prostitution. Considering Harry was in the room and heard the voice coming from the phone, it was slightly embarrassing, so I quickly hung the phone up after it started to talk about their "girls being caged cats in heat."

I don't know what's wrong with people. (Funny coming from me, eh?)

I managed to dial the number correctly the second time (poor Henry must have gotten a lot of mistaken calls) but it just went to his voicemail. I started talking. "Hey, Hen, it's Crazy Female. I know you're there in the apartment somewhere, so don't think you can hide, buddy."

Henry answered. "Tetsu?" His voice sounded shaky.

"Yo, don't get so scared over a phone call, I ain't gonna hurt you," I replied. "Listen, can I ask you something?"

Henry hesitated. "Can you…come back here?" he asked in that usual weak voice of his.

I screwed up my face. He wanted _me_ to come to him? "Something wrong, Hen?" There was a silence. "Did you just nod your head?"

"Yeah."

"Uh, look, I'm all the way in Silent Hill. I don't know if I c—"

"It's my dad," Henry said.

"Your voice is kinda choked, man. What'd he do?"

"He's a jackass…"

"Are you hurt?"

"A little."

I scowled at that. I didn't care if it was physical, mental, or social harm, no one left a mark on my only good human friend without me getting involved somehow. Perhaps I'm just protective but it didn't quite register at the moment. "Where'd your dad go?"

"I think he's coming back. I'm kind of scared."

"Dude, call the police if you're that uncomfortable," I ordered. I wasn't surprised that Henry was being a little pathetic; the guy didn't have much backbone.

"I can't."

"Why?"

"He's my dad."

"Didn't stop me from killing mine," I muttered, then clasped a hand over my mouth immediately.

Fuck. I didn't mean to say that.

Henry was quiet for the longest time as if he was waiting for me to say something in return, but when he realized that I was going to remain quiet, he spoke softly again. "You…what?"

"Christ, Henry, that…I can't play that one off. Sorry."

"You murdered your dad, Tetsu?"

I put a hand over my eyes. Why keep the truth from him? "Yeah, I did. I stabbed him to death. I don't really remember doing it though…I remember the before-and-after stuff better."

I had expected him to hang up or say something negative in return, but he instead said, "I understand."

"If you call the police then that's fine," I said. "I'm gonna die someday anyways."

"No, I won't," Henry replied quickly. "I'm just…"

I sighed. "It don't matter no more, Hen."

"I won't, I promise," Henry said. "Just don't bring the police back here."

"I couldn't do that to you, Henry. You'd die if you were in jail. Tell you what, just sit tight and I'll be there soon."

"Alright," Henry said, then waited for me to hang up.

I sighed and turned the phone off. "My life is just one big soap opera," I mumbled.


	33. Chapter 32

**Hi guys XD My sister and I just had oral surgery yesterday to remove our wisdom teeth (all four of them) so I've been a little off lately. All what we did yesterday was watch Silent Hill and Aliens and a few other movies…but I'm bored now…so if parts of this chapter seems a little weird it's because I'm not exactly 100% right now XD I apologize for any misspellings or whatnot…I've been on a bunch of medication recently.**

**Also should mention that if I write something in here that I've written in other chapters…whelp…my bad e.e Medicine will do that...**

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><p>So, after traveling from Ashfield to Silent Hill and back within a day, I was tired and a bit cranky. I spent a lot of my time having conversations with Pyramid or complaining to various other monsters of my plight, which was a normal thing, but I still detested being tired. Being sleepy was like an endless, dark void that sucked in all energy and life from the very remnants of one's fragile soul, consuming it into one giant pit of tiredness where tired reigned and thy wonderful tireness of tired tires….<p>

Who cares, no one's listening anyways.

(Tired tires, really Tetsu, really?)

I detest alliteration as much as I loathe exhaustion, but as I stepped out of the subway and came back to South Ashfield Heights, I was more concerned with finding a place to sleep. Even the floor was looking cozy. I also concluded that I must have looked like a grizzly bear woken up from mid-hibernation considering anyone I passed moved far away from me.

I entered the apartment building and the first thing I heard was yelling. Loud yelling, the kind that rang throughout the entire building. I then learned that it was from and oldish-looking man near the stairs screaming at a tall, thin man with brown hair—Henry.

"You could've become a doctor, or a lawyer, and what do you do instead? You take pictures! That's it!" Henry's father yelled. "After all the money I saved up for you and all of the grades you got in school, you became a fucking photographer! And now your car's broken and you can't pay for it to get fixed. Oh, lord! Had you listened to me all those years ago, you wouldn't have to ask _me_ for the money!"

From where I was near the front door, I could see Henry near the tenant mailboxes. He was shaking violently and looked like he was on the verge of tears. His eyes were watery and he was clearly very frightened to the point where he was rendered speechless.

His father was red-faced and enraged. "You're stupid, you're so _fucking stupid_!" he yelled. "And you know what happens to stupid people, Henry? Huh? You know? THEY DIE!"

The welled-up tears in Henry's eyes finally spilled down his face and dripped onto the floor. He opened his mouth to respond but nothing came out. No words, no squeaks, not even a wisp of air.

His father was oblivious to my presence. "And you know why else you're so stupid, Henry? For once in your life you finally found some girl who you might actually be able to be with, but what do you do? You turn her away! You're hardly even a man." He paced back and forth angrily. "You're almost thirty and you haven't even fucked anyone yet! And that red-haired bitch you met looked like you could have fucked her _real_ hard, but no, you don't!"

The next part…oh my god. The look on the guy's face as he turned around and saw me staring down at him with infuriated eyes was priceless. I was so much taller than him and since I was tensed, my pectoral and arm muscles were more defined than usual. My chest was wide, alright? So for me to be standing as close as I was looking down upon this guy made me feel like a god. I felt like the supreme master of the universe (not literally, I'm exaggerating) when he backed away from me and suddenly became fearful.

I kept my killer, piercing gaze upon him. Despite me feeling powerful, I was also as angry as a beaver whose dam was just destroyed. "Mind tellin' me what the hell's goin' on?"

The adult stood up tall (but was still smaller than me) and replied in a way that showed he was trying to act tough. "Giving my son a pep-talk. You?"

"I'm about to bash your head open," I replied merrily.

"I'd call the cops," he replied.

"And now you've given me proof that when I do bash your head open, there sadly will be no brain. Only air." I then glanced over at Henry. He had moved behind me so that I was between him and his father. There was relief in his tearstained face. "So you want to explain what this business 'bout you calling my dear friend here a stupid idiot, also how the hell do you connect photography to fucking me?"

He seemed to have thought about that for a second, realizing that he was knee-deep in shit, but he kept his stature. "He's poor," he replied. "He can't even pay to have his car fixed, so he had to come and ask me."

"So then what about him fucking me?"

He looked alarmed. "It wasn't you—"

"How many other redheads do you know?" I snapped back.

"Tha-tha-"

"Tha-tha what?"

"That girl across the hall," he replied weakly.

"You're the world's worst liar. First off, I ain't for sale. I don't like your son that way. Besides, if anyone here has a low intelligence, I'd say it's you." I huffed out my breath and crossed my strong arms, still looking down at him in a challenging way. "You're more concerned with money than happiness. Hen's life ain't yours."

"Now wait, I never said it was."

I rolled my acid-green eyes. "Yeah ya did." My voice then changed to an intense hiss full of seething anger. "Now if you don't turn around and walk away right now, I _will_ smash your skull open."

He still tried to remain tough-looking. Honestly, it was pathetic. "This is _my_ son we're talking about—"

I turned into a fiery dragon hailing from the pits of Tartarus at that moment. I'm not even going to write down the montage of explicit language and bashing that somehow found its way out of my throat. Let's just say I was…harsh. Very harsh.

Ah what the hell. You guys don't care. If it were aired on television, it would have sounded pretty close to this: "YOU (beep) (beep)! HOW DARE YOU (beep)ING BE A (beep)ING (beep)! YOU MOTHER(beep)ING SON OF A BITCH!" At this point I was kind of up in his face and he was backing away from me pretty quickly. "You think you can just come up to us and talk like that? Huh? You little (beep)! (Beep) YOU (beep) (beep) SHEEP (beep) A DUCK (BEEP!)"

It continued like that for a good five minutes and ended with me yelling at him that I never wanted to his face around Henry ever again. He promptly turned on his heels and left the building.

Me, being as angry and big as ever thanks to my being seriously tensed, had a hard time calming down. I turned around to Henry and said, "Are you alright?"

Henry looked hesitant, however he nodded and quietly said, "…Thanks…"

I sighed. "C'mon, let's go up to your apartment." I put my hand on his back and gently pushed him forward to coax him into moving. I ignored the stares everyone else in the lobby was giving me.

We entered his apartment a few moments later. Henry was still shaking so I told him to go sit down on a chair and he listened. I walked over to his refrigerator and took out two bottles of chocolate milk, then handed him one and opened the other. "So…you better now?"

Henry nodded, though he said nothing.

"Sorry if I scared you man," I said.

"No, it's not that," Henry said quietly. "I've been having these weird dreams lately."

I swallowed the milk and asked, "What about?"

"A friend of yours," he replied. "Pyramid Head?"

I stared at him for a second. "Are they dreams or nightmares?"

"Nightmares."

"What happens?"

"You're being chased by someone with a gun in this…hell. You're panicking and get shot, then die, and Pyramid Head's standing near you. He picks you up and drags you away, then…" He paused and looked nervous.

"Henry, just tell me what happened," I said and leaned back in the chair, completely intrigued. "It's okay."

"He's hugging you, I think he's crying…but he sets you down on a chair. He takes his helmet off and put it on you, then you turn into him and he dies."

I blinked and there was an awkward silence for a moment. "Strange dream."

"Yes."

"You wake up after that?"

"Yes."

I sat there for a while contemplating about that. It was probably a message of some sort from the Otherworld. Just as I was about to speak again, the necklace stuffed down my black shirt (and bra) started to vibrate slightly, then intensified. I was alarmed on the inside but remained calm on the outside. "Someone's going to knock on the door."

I was correct when someone knocked thrice on the wooden barrier. I stood up quietly, put my index finger to my mouth to tell Henry to be quiet, then tip-toed to his bathroom where I would hide. My necklace, a gift from Pyramid, only vibrated when a Cult member was nearby. There was probably someone in the lobby who saw me and realized that I matched the description of their most-wanted individual.

I managed to stuff myself in the small closet of his bathroom where he kept his towels. I breathed slowly and closed my eyes as I heard the door open.

The voices were muffled so I could never actually hear them, but I knew that they were asking about me. Why does this happen so often, and in Henry's apartment, too? Or more specifically, HIS BATHROOM? It must be cursed. I should have just stayed in Silent Hill and let Henry deal with his own problems, even if he was my only human friend (besides Heather).

After a second, I realized that the situation was much more dire than I thought. They ran down the hall and rammed the bathroom door open, then started to ransack it. "Where is she?" one of them yelled as she ripped the shower curtain off. "Where did that little _bitch_ go?"

I swallowed and stayed quiet, and then the closet door opened. Before they could shout my fist was already in their face breaking their teeth. He tumbled backwards and hit the sink, so I grabbed onto his hair and started to bash him into the metal faucet until the woman took out a police baton and smashed my head with it.

Blood as red as my hair splattered against the small mirror and I let out a pained noise. I gave her a vicious glare as sharp as a butcher knife as she sent her baton sailing for my head again, but I dodged it and pulled up the man in the sink. It hit him instead as I violently shoved him into the woman. They both fell and tried to scramble to their feet, then the woman took out a gun.

I panicked and fled the room, but she pulled the trigger. Something hit the back of my leg and I crumbled to the ground in surprised and screamed, though it withered away quickly. I crawled into Henry's bedroom and slammed the door shut, then went off to the side as the gunshots splintered the wood. I grabbed onto my necklace and mouthed, "Demons help me."

Why weren't they coming? Pyramid should have been showing up, or Blue, or Spike. Hanging Figure could have worked too, but I was alone and by myself. Then I remembered that they wouldn't be coming as long as those two Cult members were around. They couldn't get near them.

I let out a horrified breath, then quickly jumped over the bed and smashed the window with my elbow. The flesh of my arm was pierced, cut, and sliced deeply as if it had been put through a meat grinder. Tiny shards were embedded in my muscle, causing me much pain as my arm moved. Just as the two entered the bedroom, I was on the outside of the window and had started to climb down the side of the building. My warm blood was streaming down my bare, wounded arm and soaked my neck, chest, and shirt. I looked up and saw the woman with the gun near the window, so in a panic, the kicked the window of the person who lived beneath Henry and it shattered (I have the kick of a horse).

She shot again and it hit my shoulder. I let out a scream and let go of the building in surprise but caught myself on the edge of the windowsill below, also stabbing my hands with the small and large shards of sharp glass. With the massive surges of adrenaline pumping through my blood, I ignored the pain and hoisted myself up into the person's bedroom. I screamed in pain from the bullet wound in my leg and shoulder and saw that while no bullet was in my destroyed shoulder, the one in my leg was still present. I would need to get that out by myself.

I ran out of the bedroom and looked at a frightened man in the kitchen. He screamed and looked very alarmed when he saw me, but I quickly limped into the kitchen and opened up all of the drawers until I found a kitchen knife, then ran away quickly like a frightened dog. I put a hand to a wall and tried to walk through it but my necklace was still vibrating. Regardless, I only tried harder, now desperate to get away. The door to the apartment was broken down as the two Cult members chased me, then tried to shoot as I was halfway through the wall.

One of them grabbed onto me to pull me out but I was already being sucked into a random area of my nightmare world, so when the other grabbed onto the one grasping my back, all three of us were pulled in. I fell out first, then the man who landed on top of me, and then at last the woman who crushed both of us. I squirmed and got them off, then looked around for a brief moment.

The machines and cling-clanking gears in the exposed walls were moving fast, causing them to generate much noise. They were red-hot from being far too overheated, giving the dark, steamy room an eerie red glow. It was sweltering hot and smelled of sulfur; the first indication of intruders.

I painfully scrambled to my feet and ran down the scorching hallway that seemed to be getting longer with every step that I took. At first I was slow, then I picked up my pace—still very aware of the agony in my leg and arms—and I got faster and faster as I panicked. Soon I was running with a desperate speed, now completely intent on surviving. Still limping, I turned a sharp corner and panted heavily. It was so loud that even when I screamed for the monsters to help me, I couldn't hear my own voice.

Red sparks were going of beside me, indicating that I was getting shot at. I never slowed down as I turned another corner that lead into a much larger, square room and nearly got crushed by a piece of machinery that was falling. I hadn't been in this area in a long time so I didn't remember it as well as the others. I ran around the obstruction and ducked to crawl underneath it, but I got burned when my skin came in contact with the metal. I gritted my teeth as my skin sizzled for a second but I sprinted nonetheless. I heard something come undone and I skittered to a halt as a large gear fell off from the ceiling and smashed into the metal ground with crushing force.

The weight warped the floor that I was on, which was only large sheets of metal platforms and a black nothingness below. More overheated machinery came loose from the walls and fell around the three of us as the floor started to come undone. We separated and I crouched down on the ground as it started to move, swaying back and forth like a bridge whose support lines had all been cut.

Mine tipped upwards when something else fell near the end and I started to slid down with the piles of metal that were on my large platform. I yelled and caught myself on the edge, dangling with one very wounded hand over a black abyss where screams from hell were rising up from it. The machine pieces and metal were falling down, down, down….

I tried to pull myself back up and failed. I swung my bullet-wounded arm up and grabbed onto the edge of the metal, then kicked like a bucking animal and breathed heavily as I hauled myself up again. The surface had grips on it like the kind you would find on ramps to prevent people from slipping, but they couldn't help me. I tried to swing a leg up, but I paused when the platform started to bend downwards because of my weight.

I was praying that it wouldn't fall, but I felt someone grab onto my back and lift me up into the air to the ceiling. I hadn't heard her from all of the noise, but Hanging Figure had saved me from falling to death as the platform bent once more and plunged into the abyss, twisting all the way. The caged upside-down mass of gray flesh with two arms brought me over to a more stable area and dropped me near an exit of the room since she couldn't progress further.

I fell to the ground and yelled again at the pain in my leg, but I still got up and limped away. There wasn't much more that Hanging Figure could do for me, anyways. I ran for a ways and slowed down, then gripped my head in my hands as I tried to catch my breath, quickly heaving air in and out of my burning lungs. The intense heat didn't help my situation, either. I was shaking with fear from nearly plummeting to my death and wondered how I had forgotten about that room.

My necklace vibrated again many minutes later. I looked around in a panic as it started to move more and more. Somehow, the two Cult members had escaped the room while I was busy trying not to fall and they were going in the same direction that was. How, I wondered, was that possible, considering that this was a gigantic loud labyrinth with walls and ceilings made out of metal and machines that did Pyramid-Head-knows-what?

I let out a desperate sound as I started to run forward, now holding a hand to the back of my throbbing leg. I peered over my shoulder and saw them emerging from a tiny hallway in the wall. Being the persistent little pests that they were, they ran after me again.

I picked up my pace, not even noticing a noisy and fast whomp-whomp-whomp of fan blades until it was too late. There was a gigantic, rusty, very bloody fan off to the left that stretched far up to the ceiling and was spinning so fast that you couldn't even distinguish the individual blades. The suction from the air being pulled into it knocked me to the ground, but I instinctively leaned away from it. I spread my arms and legs out on the ground to prevent myself from getting pulled in, then I tried to stand back up but was forced to go back down as I tried to scramble away. I put my legs together so that I wouldn't get pulled in, even as the air from my lungs was being sucked out.

I tried to crawl/roll away with my arms but I kept going back farther and farther. At last I reached the side of the fan and grabbed onto the metal wall that was encompassing it. I used all my might to pull myself away from the huge blades just a mere few inches away, then I got out of the suction and laid on the ground for a second. I turned my head and watched the two Cult members.

The woman didn't see the fan either and clearly didn't know what had caused me to fall to the ground and get pulled back. She was less fortunate, for when she entered the vortex of air, she just flew right off of her feet. She was significantly lighter and smaller than me. She hit the blades and all what I saw was a spray and mist of blood that went downwards away from us into a hallway full of the giant fans. For once, it disturbed me, for I knew that if I had been lighter, that would have been me, killed by my own heaven and sanctuary.

Well…I guess it's not so much of a sanctuary if I keep forgetting about the important and dangerous things contained within it.

I watched the man stop before he entered the suction from the fan and looked at me. He didn't have the gun and had nothing to throw. Despite the bruising and bleeding head injuries he had, I saw him curse and turn around, then he disappeared out of sight.

I was laying on my side supporting myself up with one arm as I watched him. My lungs were screaming for air. I was sweating so much that my hair was dripping wet and the saltiness of it mixed with my blood and caused me to sting all over. Shaking, I staggered up to my feet once more before I hobbled away. Now that was thinking straighter and was no longer panicking, I recognized the area and went left to avoid more of the giant fans.

I licked my lips and tasted blood and salt. There were tears.


	34. Chapter 33

**YO DUDES. SOMEONE DREW MORE FAN ART :D I can't seem to get the links to work on FanFiction for whatever reason, but the person's username on DeviantArt is Vmartin (I belive she has a FanFiction account too) and she drew three pictures called Pyramid and Tetsu, Pyramid and Tetsu 2, and Pyramid and Tetsu 3, and I love them very much ^.^**

**In case if you guys haven't noticed, I LOVE fan art, so thanks so much all of your that have drawn pictures of this fanfiction! I really appreciate it! :D :D**

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><p>I winced in pain and scrunched my fingers and toes up as I sucked in my breath and held it. I squeezed my eyes shut as the grotesque nurse without a face stitched up my shoulder. There was no pain medication so I could feel the needle piercing and sliding in and out of my flesh. At least it had been cleaned and disinfected. Hopefully the scar would at least be sexy….<p>

It was funny to think that this grungy room in the Nightmare Hospital was actually usable. It was friendly and inviting to me too, even though it was covered in blood splatters, rust, and mold. The lights were dim but at least they weren't flickering incessantly, which sometimes would drive me insane. Well…more insane than I already was, but you can't fix insanity with sutures.

The nurse finished up on my last wound and let out a moan. Her hunched-over back looked like it had a face staring at me as she turned around and grabbed a tray containing the many glass pieces that were previously trapped within my muscle and skin, as well as a large bullet. My leg was going to be a bitchy diva for at least two months.

The monster-like, creepy nurse helped me up onto my feet. She returned the kitchen knife that I stole from that random person's apartment who lived underneath Henry. The blade had been perfect to remove the bullet in my leg so the nurse used it for that purpose instead of a scalpel. Next she brought over a bloody, screeching wheelchair and helped set me down in it. She pushed me forward and brought me out of the room and into a dark, macabre hallway lighted by fluorescent bulbs. The white-and-black tiles on the ground were stained yellow and red and, as usual, it smelled of blood.

I sighed and looked at the ground solemnly. I was throbbing everywhere and decided that it was from my own carelessness. Even if I was being shot at and chased, I feel like it was still my fault. I should have stayed in Silent Hill.

I lifted my head when that familiar clunk-scrape-clunk-scrape of Pyramid's sword against the ground was heard. I saw his hulking figure come around the corner and I smiled at him as the nurse pushed me forward. Once we were close enough, the nurse turned around and left and Pyramid grabbed onto the handles of the wheelchair and rolled me down the hallway as silent and wordless as usual.

"Thanks," I said to him. I was hurting like hell and I grimaced. Pyramid put a hand on my good shoulder for a moment like how a father would to comfort their child, then he grasped the wheelchair's handle again. I smiled. "At least a couple more Cult members are dead, right?"

Pyramid let out a moaning sound as he pushed me down the very hellish hallway that, to me, was very homey. He grumbled quietly, sounding somewhat saddened as he did so.

I frowned. "Pyramid…Dad…I'm sorry," I said. "I forget about all the dangerous parts of that dimension. I panicked, alright? I'm sorry."

Pyramid groaned again like he was trying to say something, though no words were ever formed. I wondered where he was taking me, but I decided not to question him. Pyramid Head was the one creature I trusted more than anything else out there in the world, and I loved him as my parent. I'm sure that he loved me as his daughter as well, and our camaraderie as well as our pact was still as strong as ever despite my little temperament fits.

As I was wheeled down the long, hot, silent hallways, I closed my eyes and relaxed in my own little hell. At some point I fell asleep because when I woke up, I was in my bedroom, sleeping on the blood-stained sheets and blankets. One of my stuffed animals – a gift from Pyramid – was next to my head on my pillow. I smiled and I took the little creature in my arms despite my pained shoulder. (Where did he get those stuffed animals, anyways? I had various other children's toys in my room, all gifts from him for my birthdays.)

I hugged the stuffed animal and looked around my room of hell. I jumped a bit when I turned my head to the other side and I saw Pyramid lying down on his back on the opposite side of the bed. I listened for a moment and he was breathing deeply and loudly, indicating that he was asleep.

For some reason I liked it whenever he slept. He could be deemed as a monster or something of the sort, but the guy was alive in a way. He breathed. He slept. He had feelings. He had a heartbeat. I poked his big arm and he took in a quick breath, then he turned his huge helmet-head to me. I smiled and rested the side of my face against the cold metal. "Thanks for the help Dad," I said.

My best friend mumbled something and moved his heavy head for a moment, then stopped and he breathed deeply once more like he was still tired.

I stayed there for a little while, enjoying the presence of my guardian. It was very comforting to know that I could sleep and my angel (yeah, say what you want, Pyramid's my archangel) was going to be there for me. After a while we both got up from the bed and Pyramid helped me to walk from the pain my injuries caused.

I didn't care where I was going, 'kay? I just wanted to get up and move because if there's one thing I hate more than bullies and the Cult, it's being incapable of something. I hated not being able to do something. I hung onto Pyramid's arm.

"So, Dad, I was thinkin'…when I go back to Silent Hill, I think I might just go straight into the church," I said. "I might have a Molotov on me or something, or some sort of explosive."

Pyramid stopped walking and he looked down at me, though he was thinking. Eventually he shook his head.

"Okay, so then I'll blow it up from the outside," Tetsu said.

Pyramid still shook his head.

"Can I blow _anything_ up?" I asked. "I like fire. Fire's pretty."

He shook his somewhat rusted helmet once more. He made a sound that might have been "terrorist."

"I ain't a terrorist," Tetsu said. "I'm just gonna blow something up and turn all the people inside into charcoal."

"That's what…terrorist is," Pyramid replied, speaking with difficulty.

I grumbled and pinched the bridge of my nose. "I ain't exactly the best person in the world, ya know."

"But you're not the worst," he said in his deep, gruff voice.

I thought about that for a moment. "I still want them all to die."

He nodded.

"I thought it didn't matter how I killed them, as long as they're dead."

He shook his head.

I sighed and looked down at my feet for all of two seconds before lifting my gaze once more at the dark hallway that smelled of sulfur. "I think I'll just sneak into the back at night and light it up on fire. That's what I want to do. I know that you guys won't be able to get near the church, but that's okay. I'll be careful."

"Please be," Pyramid said. His arm tensed when I stumbled forward and I grimaced in pain, forced to put much more of my weight on him to keep myself up. Just like how when I was a little girl, he lifted me up effortlessly and placed me down flat on my feet. I tripped from a divot in the metal floor.

My guardian seemed uneasy for a couple hours afterwards. We wound up running into Spike and I sat down on the huge hellhound's strong, broad back and he walked with me on him. In fact, he seemed to have had a bounce in his step and his head was up high like he was proud he was carrying me. Spike was an interesting dog, anyways.

I petted Spike's short, rough fur and his tail wagged quickly. I looked down at my leg and my bandaged hands and sighed. "Damn…how long have I been in here, Dad?"

"Eleven hours," he replied.

I sighed. "I should probably go. I can't stay in here for more than twelve hours."

Spike stopped walking and he let out a quiet whine. I stood up slowly (it felt good to have some pressure taken off of my leg by sitting on Spike) and I patted my little doggy on the head. His face brightened up and he stood up on his hind legs so that he was a little taller than me. He managed to balance himself so that he was standing like a human, then he leaned his head forward and licked the side of my face. He trembled for a second from the difficulty of standing on his hind legs, but he then extended a paw out to me.

I smiled at him and shook the giant dog's paw. I held onto it for a moment and I asked, "Do you want to come with me, buddy?"

The dog brightened up completely and he jumped up and down on his hind legs. He slipped and fell back down onto all fours, then he circled around Pyramid and I and in the end, jumped up on my guardian.

Pyramid looked at the dog as he wrapped his strong front legs around him like a hug. The dog licked Pyramid's arm and leg go of him, then circled us a few more times before sitting down next to me. His tail was wagging so fast that he could hardly stay still.

Pyramid wiped his arm of the dog slobber and shook his head. Underneath his helmet, I imagined him rolling his eyes.

I patted Spike on the head and grabbed onto his black, spiked collar, then I brought him over to the wall. I held onto him as we travelled through the wall and once I pulled us out, we were in a quiet, seemingly abandoned part of Ashfield. The pain from the injuries increased and I grimaced in pain, using my dog to keep myself up. Spike gave me a concerned look, but I just smiled at him.

"Don't worry," I said. "I just need to sit down for a moment again."

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><p><strong>BE PREPARED TO CRY SOON.<strong>


	35. Chapter 34

**Hi guys, I'm probably gonna have to wrap up this fanfiction soon. To be honest, I've been having writer's block everywhere; in fanfictions, in real-life novels I'm working on, in short stories, so…yeah, I might need to end this soon ^^; And by soon, I mean within the next 5-10 chapters.**

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><p>I slept that night with Spike right beside me. I was curled up in a ball against his hot underbelly since he was sleeping on his side with one front leg over me like he was hugging me. We were inside of an abandoned factory building with slightly crumbling walls and broken glass windows, but it was still shelter from the light rain softly drizzling outside from the dreary day.<p>

I woke up first and poked Spike's belly to make his eyes open. When he didn't move and continued to snore as loudly as a dying elephant, I shoved him roughly and he rolled onto his back, though he was still sleeping. He snorted and I got up on my knees, then shook his head with my huge hand. His tongue flopped out and his paws twitched.

"Come on you big puppy, wake up," I said, tickling him beneath the chin.

He woke up immediately after that and looked around like he was confused, then he realized that he was on his back and he flipped around onto his underside again. His massive jaws opened and he yawned loudly, then he closed them and licked his lips before licking me, slobbering over my face like he was trying to give me some sort of strange bath with his tongue.

I giggled and pushed him away. "Alright, doggy, let's get up and go to Silent Hill. People are just gonna think you're some huge dog instead of a monster so you'll be safe." I stood up and stretched. "I feel safer with you with me."

Spike yipped happily and shook himself once he was standing on his paws. He stayed by my side since I was limping badly and whenever I needed help walking, I would just use him. The tall, muscular dog never minded.

We exited the building and Spike became preoccupied with sniffing the area. He was a little excited to be in a new place and he wanted to inspect everything, but he never strayed farther than five feet away from me.

This was a very sketchy area of the neighborhood, probably where a bunch of potheads and crack-whores hung out. I looked to my right and saw a shabby, young, thin man standing near the doorway of an abandoned building smoking a cigarette. He looked at me with half-closed eyes and I rolled my own. People like him were annoying to me for whatever reason.

At least I won't be the one dying of lung cancer and overdoses. Instead, I'm probably going to die from being murdered by a satanic cult. At least it's a bizarre way to go lights out, am I right?

After a while of travelling aimlessly, I realized something extremely important; I was as lost as a bird that strayed from the flock during migration. I was like a Canadian goose in Mexico; it was just bad. I asked Spike if he knew where to go, but he had no clue either. I turned around and started to retrace my steps to get a good idea of where we were in this shabby area of south Ashfield. Eventually I turned down a grungy brick alleyway with trash lining the cracked pavement. I climbed over the fence that blocked it, wincing all the way from my injuries, yet I just sucked it up and dealt with the pain anyways. Spike, being the strong dog he was, simply sailed straight over it when he jumped.

I smirked at the dog and said, "Showoff." He only woofed at me with an excited expression on his ferocious, cute face.

We came out from the alleyway and entered an eerie, empty street. I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my black pants and after a few minutes I heard Spike beginning to growl. I looked to my side, but he was behind me, low to the ground in a very tensed state like he was ready to attack something. He barked twice but no one was there.

I patted my leg. "Buddy, c'mon. I'm gonna try to catch the train to Silent Hill." I limped forward, feeling a sense of security with the dog. But, just when I think I'm okay, badness always surrounds me.

It was a gang. I had run into gangs in the past and beat the absolute living shit out of them, but these were several guys – clearly drug dealers – who came out front of them from behind the alley's entrance.

Spike growled and I backed off, seeing the guns in their hands. I hated always having bad luck. I was half-Irish; wasn't I supposed to have good luck every once in a while? They stared at me like they were expecting me to say something, so I voiced, "Uh…hello?"

"You a man or a woman?" one of them asked.

I decided to lie since I had had near-rape incidents in the past. "A guy, can't you tell a guy from a girl?"

One of them stepped closer and Spike growled very loudly. I grabbed onto his collar and pulled him back, knowing that the danger of guns could easily hurt or kill my precious friend of seven years. "What do you want?" I asked.

"You're on a toll road," he replied. "I hope you got fifty bucks on you."

"Fifty dollars?! Man, your crack must be getting expensive," I said as I reached into my pockets for any cash, but I found none. There was some lint and a few quarters, but that was about it. I looked around quickly upon realizing that I was in yet another serious situation – when am I ever going to get a vacation, anyways? – and found a crate of alcoholic bottles near me. If these guys were smokers, they'd have lighters, right?

I calmly sauntered over to the open crate and took out a few bottles of vodka, opening the tops of them so that I could sniff them. My eyes watered like I was sniffing rotten onions. "Maybe you guys could just take this alcohol and be on your way," I said as I turned the open bottle upside-down and watched as the clear, strong-smelling contents poured out onto the ground.

They gave me odd looks. "What are you doing? Don't just waste it like that!"

"I'm not, I'm not, trust me," I said as I took out several more bottles and opened them. "I just took some weird drug, makin' see dragons and whatnot flying around the skies. I'm gonna buy one, just one, and I'll feed it unicorns."

The tallest one, who also appeared to have been the leader of the group, watched me curiously and kept his gun lowered. "What sort of shit are you on?" he asked as I started throwing the bottles against the walls, surrounding our feet with alcohol.

"I dunno, beats me," I replied in a voice that was as dreamy as I could have possibly made it. "But I'm just freeing the unicorns, no big deal."

"Maybe we should just leave 'im," another voice suggested. "He's outta his mind."

"Yeah, but maybe he's got something that we can take," the leader said. "Just mug 'im. I'll stand back here and watch."

I watched them with my peripheral vision as they approached me, then I looked at them with glazed-over eyes, giving them an idiotic smile. "What's up?"

One of them reached for the pocket of my pant leg, then I suddenly retaliated back and grabbed hold of his arm, snapping it in half as I twisted him around. The man was surprised but he screamed from the sudden jolt of pain in his broken limb, then I reached into his pocket and felt around for a lighter, taking it out so fast that they didn't have any chance to stop me. The second that they started cussing me out, I dashed past them, dodging their arms as they reached out for me.

One of them raised their gun at me and started to shoot, but the moment that I was out of the alcohol, I turned the lighter on and threw it behind me. I heard the alcohol ignite and a roaring fire started, engulfing the alleyway and the gang in vibrant, hot flames.

"Come on, Spike!" I yelled as the dog tailed behind me and we got out of the alleyway before the flames could lick us. I looked behind us and saw black, charring figures screaming and flailing around as their clothes and skin flaked off into the air, consumed by the fire in an instant. I started to walk away as their writhing fleshes sizzled, cooked, and burned into the heat, and I refrained myself from looking back as I picked up my pace and began to run. I slowed down when Spike began to whimper.

I turned around and saw my dog bleeding profusely from his side and his neck. He took a few steps towards me with his massive paws before his legs gave out and he collapsed onto the ground.

"Spike!" I yelled, quickly running over to him. I got down by his side and felt my heart dropping into my feet as a deep pit of dread filled my stomach. He had been shot twice and I had nothing to stop the bleeding, so I panicked and immediately applied pressure to his neck. "It's alright, I can fix this, I can fix this," I said quickly, trying to find some way to stop the creature of bleeding to death without suffocating him as he whined and shook.

I dragged the dog off of the road and continued to press down on his wound, but a large pool of blood was growing very rapidly. After a moment, the dog went limp and stopped his wheezing breathing. I froze where I was and looked at his dull eyes that were staring off into space, then I let out a horrified sound and held my hand to my mouth. I glided my fingers over his whiskers, knowing that he hated it whenever I did that, but there was no reaction. I pushed him, then I slapped his face several times to get him to move, but he remained flaccid.

"C'mon Spike, you're not dead," I said in a voice full of disbelief. "You're a hellhound…a fucking hellhound, you can't just die." There was a long moment of silence as I waited for the dog to wag his nub of a tail, get up, lick me on the face, and merrily be on his way, but he never did. "Wa…wake up! WAKE UP!" I yelled as I started to punch his face repeatedly. "Wake up, you stupid dog! I love you so much you can't just fucking die like this!"

I gripped my red hair with my hands and I leaned back against a wall, now hyperventilating from losing one of my closest friends. He had been the first monster other than Pyramid Head that I had ever met, and seeing him die made my mind snap in half. I didn't know what to do.

I stood up and started to angrily kick one of the walls, then I screamed, then I cried, and then I stood next to Spike and stared at his body with a tear-stained face and quivering chest. I bent down and picked up the dog, sobbing and muttering quiet words to him as I carried him like I was carrying a crate, and then I started to walk off.

I wasn't sure where I was going.


End file.
